Wild Dawn

by Cait London

  “Pagan, you shall pay dearly,” he crooned softly, watching the shade of his eyes change into dark purple in the salt-crusted glass. “You carry the family insignia, your eyes, Pagan. I shall find you easily, even in the wilds of the Colonies. You’ll wear the Mariah Stone around that slender bit of a neck like a ten-stone.... That fool Covington. I should have known he couldn’t control you away from my grasp. Not for a fortnight. He doesn’t know what your savage blood is capable of doing. But I do.... I do and I will bring you to heel as I did your mother. Then all my power will return, the estate will prosper as it did when I held you in my fist.”

  ~**~

  Wrapped in her shawl, Regina stared at the fire running along a dried limb. With the cabin settled for the long night, and MacGregor camped near his trap lines, she was alone with Jack.

  The baby sighed softly in his willow crib, and Regina turned back to the fire.

  Sparks shot out as a bead of pitch ignited. Her lips moved around a word, tasting the memories. “Mariah.”

  The sound of the word brought the past skipping along her thoughts. She closed her eyes, trying to remember an elusive memory.... A dark-skinned woman with lustrous black eyes bent near her, smiling tenderly.

  The woman, wrapped in gauze and veils, laughed and danced sinuously, the sound gentle and melodic as she tapped tiny cymbals between her thumb and fingers... the woman hugging her close and sobbing softly, her enormous black eyes filled with tears... her father’s voice roaring with rage across time, his quirt whipping the woman who crouched at his feet....

  Hiding behind a velvet curtain, Regina saw the woman dance for her father as he drank. Above the veil her liquid almond-shaped brown eyes were frightened, wounded....

  The tiny cymbals clinked softly, blending with the music of a lute as she whirled faster and faster, her soft hips quivering. The coins lining her tight bodice and girdle flashed and tinkled musically. The heavy scent of incense clung to the scene as her father stood and drunkenly swaggered toward the dancing woman.

  Raising her arms high, twining her wrists as her fingers kept up the rhythm, the woman stood still as his greedy hands ran over her. Then she danced away, the gauzy material clinging to her almost nude body. Her father reached out again, ripping the embroidered bodice from the woman’s shimmering, full breasts.

  Between the dancing, painted nipples an enormous stone, blood-red and glittering, swung from a thick golden chain....

  Regina shook, opening her eyes to force away the memory of Hawkes’s hand toying with her mother’s nipples and the jewel before he raped her.

  The flames danced higher on the log, hissing.

  “Mariah,” Regina whispered, hugging her trembling body as the tears streaked down her face. “My mother’s and grandmother’s name and the name of the jewel.”

  A sudden chill swept into the room, and she shivered, trapped by her past.

  “Come here, Violet,” MacGregor said softly as he closed the door behind him. “Let me hold you when you cry. Just hold you, nothing more.”

  With a cry, she ran into his arms.

  ~**~

  MacGregor slammed the ax into the fallen log. Filled with frozen sap, the wood split instantly, the sound cracking like a rifle shot. He jerked the ax back. “She can’t cook. Even burns beans.”

  He stared down at Regina clearing snow away for her sheep to graze. In the freezing air the sun hit the snow in blinding intensity to outline her small body.

  Dressed as a boy, she’d fitted MacGregor’s big snowshoes to her, tending her flock while he ran his traps or hunted. Now pulling Jack’s small sled behind her, she moved freely through the clearing bordering the pines. The fringed sleeve covering the barrel of MacGregor’s Springfield rifle protruded from the bundle behind Jack’s cradleboard. Regina carried it when MacGregor wasn’t hunting and had recently brought home her first rabbits, cleaned for the stewpot.

  She’d left before first light, taking the rifle and the snowshoes. When she returned, MacGregor was just on the point of wrapping Jack and packing out to find her.

  Her grin had died when he said flatly, “There’s the pot.”

  The violet-colored eyes had opened wide, looking enormous in her small face. “You mean me... cook?”

  “Seems like you should be catching on to it by now,” he’d said, his pride riffled a little by the way he tended the meals and baked bread while she provided the meat. “Wouldn’t hurt for me to come home from two days’ trapping and find a hot meal waiting.”

  “Lovely,” she’d snapped, ripping her cap from her and tossing it to the table.

  Staring at him, she’d stripped off the heavy fur coat and his shirt, leaving her lacy white blouse thrust into the leather pants she’d fashioned. Taking her time, she’d worked free the single braid skimming down to her hips until the raven mass spread all along her body. “A lady isn’t trained for kitchen work, my good man.”

  Placing her hands on her waist, she tapped the toe of one small leather-shod foot. Her hair rippled down her to her hips, and MacGregor wanted to dive his hands into it, wrap himself in the sweet perfume.

  But instead, he crossed his arms over his chest. A man had to be firm with his woman, teaching her the right way. Except for the night she’d come crying into his arms, they’d squared off in the past three weeks, and MacGregor’s temper was wearing thin.

  “Trapping. Disgusting way to kill, MacGregor. Beastly way for an animal to die. A clean shot through the brain is much kinder.”

  He’d taken a step toward her, winding a soft strand of hair around his fist to draw her face near his. “I could show you beastly. Right on the floor.”

  Lifting her chin, Regina had met his dark stare unafraid. “Of course. Ever the gentleman, aren’t you? Your way of courting is using your superior strength to overcome me.”

  Anger had shot through MacGregor like a burning blade. “I’ve never raped you. Nor mated with you when you weren’t willing.”

  “One has little choice when one wants to survive—”

  “We’re married!” MacGregor’s roar echoed in his ears.

  “The devil we are. You don’t own me, MacGregor. I’m merely biding my time until you see the reason of taking me to civilization. The times we’ve... come together have been because of necessity.”

  “Necessity,” he repeated roughly, the word clawing at his pride. “You had to mate with me... so you did.”

  “To put it crudely... yes, exactly that.”

  “What of the babes—my children—that result?” he’d asked in a high temper.

  “You can’t expect me to bear your bastards, MacGregor.”

  “My rightful sons spawned in marriage, damn it, woman!” he roared before striding out of the cabin.

  For two weeks MacGregor had kept to himself, feeling like a wounded wolf while Regina skipped happily around her flock. She’d struck at his pride, rubbing it raw. When she sang “the beautiful music of Greensleeves” to Jack, MacGregor found an excuse to leave the warmth of the cabin. He didn’t want to remember the spicy scent of her skin, nor the way her breasts flattened against him softly during his fever.

  Slamming the ax into the tree again, MacGregor worked furiously. He needed to rid his body of the tension that ran through it like a hot wire each time he caught the scent of her body. He taught her how to shoot the rifle as an excuse to hold her. In the evenings they worked with their knives, throwing them against a spot on the cabin log.

  Learning about survival in the mountains, Regina’s endless questions pursued him. MacGregor’s uneasiness grew each day.... He’d seen men preparing to desert in the war, and Regina demonstrated those same signs.

  Regina, alone in the woods, would be easy prey. The thought caused him to sweat, evading her next question.

  “Women. This one doesn’t know the first thing about being a wife,” he muttered, trimming a branch with a quick stroke of the blade. “Wives are supposed to know how to cook and stay at home while a man traps.”
<
br />   Throwing his weight into the ax stroke, MacGregor studied the split wood. “They do what they’re told. Wives keep their men warm in the blankets. But she wants ‘more.’ What the hell is more?”

  Taking a deep breath, MacGregor petted Venus, who snuggled beneath a buffalo robe on the wood sled. Rubbing his palm over the purple ribbon in his pocket, he traced Regina’s awkward movements in big snowshoes made from white ash and leather thongs. “She’s headed out at first chance. Hell be damned.”

  Just then a mountain cat shifted on a limb over her ram. The cat’s tawny coat gleamed in the bluish-green branches of the fir tree. MacGregor cursed, weaving quickly through the brush and trees toward the deathly scene.

  The cat was on him suddenly, leaping across to another limb and down at MacGregor.

  A branch slapped his arm as he drew his pistol, ruining his aim. The bullet ripped across the cat’s shoulder just as his fangs tore into MacGregor’s upper arm.

  Rolling through the snow and brush with the mountain cat, fighting to keep the fangs from ripping his throat, MacGregor heard nothing but the snarling, hissing fury of the wounded animal and the sound of his fear tearing through his head.

  A rifle shot cracked next to him, and the cat slumped across his chest. Huge dark purple eyes, veiled with tears, looked down at him. Barely conscious, he groaned as Regina shifted him to the sled. Beside MacGregor, Jack fussed and dogs barked wildly. Streaks of pain ripped through him like raking knives....

  ~**~

  “Oh, my dear,” Regina crooned softly through the red haze. Her fingers soothed his hot forehead, the spicy scent of her body so near....

  Resting near him, feeding him broth from a spoon, she sang the lilting Greensleeves song.

  He groaned, the fiery lashes streaking through him as she salved his throat and chest. Sounds drifted around him... Jack cooing and crying, Regina hushing the baby.

  Her fingers were cool, brushing his hot forehead. “My sweet, dear man. Saving my ram at the expense of your safety... rushing through the brush like a knight charging into the fray of battle to save my precious Hercules.”

  From far away his voice sounded raspy and uneven. “You shot the cat?”

  “Yes, my dear. And Hercules pulled you to safety on the sled. Would you like more meat broth?”

  MacGregor slipped into the darkness with the taste of apricot brandy on his tongue. Near him, Regina spoke in hushed tones. “Ah... yes, Jack, here we are. Mrs. Child’s The American Frugal Housewife book is wonderful.... You see, with these dried berries we picked near the cabin today, we can make currant jelly by cooking them with sugar. Won’t your father be surprised when he tastes this lovely sweet?”

  Jack gurgled happily, and Regina giggled. “Yes, I like your kisses, my little man. There. You kiss me and I kiss you....” Jack’s happy squeal relaxed MacGregor; his son was well tended.

  Her kisses were cool and sweet as summer blackberries on his lips, the scent of her hair clinging to him as he slipped down into the darkness.

  Sunlight skimmed softly into the cabin filled with the scent of baking bread as Regina rocked Jack and read to him. “You see, Jack. Ladies must be treated delicately. A tender word about their hair or their dress. Perhaps give them a small present or two.”

  Jack babbled and she laughed, the sound tripping low and sweet across MacGregor’s senses.

  Then she was dancing in the firelight, holding Jack close to her as she hummed a song. “Ah, yes, now you have it, my little man. Smile at your love and kiss her hand like so....”

  She lifted Jack’s chubby fingers to her lips. “Then look into her eyes and tell her of her beauty.”

  MacGregor remembered her eyes, dark and purple as the small woodland flowers. Or dark blue like the clear mountain streams moving through the shadows of trees. The baby cooed and babbled, and MacGregor’s lids closed slowly as he drifted back down into sleep.

  Then the cabin was dark, the flames low in the fireplace. A shadow slid close to him, an exotic scent filled the air—Regina. Forcing his lids open, MacGregor found her swaying softly as she lifted her arms over her head.

  Tied around her waist, the shawl clung to her swaying body. She moved her hips sensuously, experimenting with the spread position of her bare feet on the bear pelt. Her hair streamed down her bare shoulders, catching the firelight as the strands slid across her bare breasts. She hummed softly, pausing and changing the tune as she rotated her hips. The cloth caught the light following the length of her legs.

  She repeated “Mariah....” slowly, as if it held significance, as if she were locking her mind to the word.

  The cloth slipped low on her buttocks, dipping to reveal the rounded soft mounds swaying to the beat of the song she hummed. The slender length of an arm lifted, and the uptilted breast shimmered pale and soft in the light. Her movements brought her nearer his cot, and MacGregor caught the scent of cinnamon and woman.

  Then his hand was on her warm bare thigh, the soft flesh and slender muscle trembling beneath his broad palm. Above him her full breasts quivered with the last of the dance, her hair swirling out from her like a blue-black cloak.

  “Violet,” he whispered huskily looking up at her.

  ....

  “Pagan. You’re out there, I can feel you breathing,” Lord Mortimer-Hawkes whispered, scanning the coastline of the Colonies. “I’ll find you, and when I do, nothing will match the power of the Mariah in my hands.”

  ~**~

  His fever broke, leaving MacGregor too weak to protest Regina’s daily reading sessions. Now his head rested against her breasts when Jack napped. She shifted the book on her lap. Her right arm rested on his shoulders as she spoke quietly. “You’re at my mercy now, my fine mountain man. You shall have to listen to my favorite literature without complaint.”

  Braced against the cabin wall, Regina shared MacGregor’s small cot, supporting him.

  He sighed softly and shifted closer to the cinnamon-scented valley of her breasts. There were advantages to being weak, he’d discovered, and one of them was having Regina soothe and croon to him. The other was the way she didn’t seem to notice the way his lips rested against her skin, nor the way his hand fitted the curve of her small waist.

  Closing his eyes, MacGregor let her low, husky voice waft over him like a sweet summer breeze. He let his fingers drift lower to the softness of her hip, then on to a slender thigh exposed by her short skirt.

  “The knights of the Round Table treated the ladies of the court with respect, as was their due. At Christmastide the halls were decked with mistletoe, and they danced and made merry. The elegant dances were much loved by knights and ladies alike. Performed to the tune of a lyre and flute, the dances provided a gentler time amid wars and rivalry. Often a minstrel would sing lovely sonnets of the lady’s beauty and a heart’s true love.”

  Just beneath the soft skin covering her throat, the pulse had quickened as MacGregor looked up.

  Soft arms and warm purple eyes could snare a man just as surely as chains, he thought drowsily. Her eyes widened as he shifted, careful not to frighten her, and lifted his lips to hers.

  The soft gasp of surprise filled his mouth. MacGregor’s fingers skimmed around her thigh and delved gently into the warmth of her thighs.

  “Now, MacGregor,” she whispered warily against his lips just before the tip of his tongue tasted hers.

  “Sweet as honey,” he murmured, trailing little kisses along her hot cheek. She quivered, her fingers tightening on his arm as his tongue traced the whorls of her ear. As he’d seen her play with Jack, he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. When she shivered, he turned her small hand upward and kissed the very center of it.

  “Egad, MacGregor,” she whispered unevenly. “Egad, MacGregor,” she repeated as he took the book from her and tossed it to the floor.

  Taking care, he eased her down along his side.

  “Lay with me, Violet,” he whispered, kissing the back of her hand again. “Talk with me.” />
  Her small hand had found his chest, the fingertips smoothing the rough hair as she would pet her animals. He lifted a strand of her hair and eased it across his throat. Regina had stilled, her head resting on his chest.

  “I’ve never wanted to talk with a female. Learn about her... just talking,” he murmured against her hair, inhaling the clean, flowery scent. “What makes your hair smell like flowers?”

  The small hand on his chest paused. “You think my hair smells like flowers?”

  When he nodded, she whispered, “Lavender soap, milled in England.”

  “Mmm. Lavender?” MacGregor nuzzled her temple, letting the wayward tendrils play across his skin.

  “Purple flowers, dried and....” She trembled slightly, looking up at him.

  “Purple like your eyes... or violets in the deep woods, clinging with morning mist—”

  “MacGregor!” Her soft startled cry pleased him.

  Pressing, following her emotions like a tracker after prey, MacGregor lifted her palm to his lips, nibbling at it. “Tell me about Christmas in England.”

  She stiffened against him, and MacGregor continued to stroke her hair, feeling her ease slowly. “You just could be dangerous,” she whispered against his chest. “I daresay that I can fight you better when you’re acting like a wounded grizzly.”

  He laughed then, and she stared at him. “You are dangerous, far too comfortable and likable at the moment.”

  He kissed her gently, just to taste the ripe, sweet moist lips rubbing against his.

  “My,” she whispered after a long moment. “You have your moments, my friend.”

  He rubbed her head playfully as he would Jack. “Tell me.”

  Lying with her at his side, talking softly in the night was a dream, he thought lazily as Regina’s head rested back on his shoulder and she gazed at the ceiling, talking softly.

  “The halls of the castle were decked with mistletoe and ribbons, platters of food and drink ready for the guests. There was music and dancing and games. Jennifer, my nanny, sneaked candies and sweets to me.”