“I’m sorry,” Hunter said to Penny. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you’ve been under the weather lately.”
Penny smiled wanly.
“Don’t worry,” Hunter added in a gentle voice. “Morgan and I will fix those Culpepper boys for you. No one will take your home away.”
Again Penny smiled, but the lines of strain on her mouth didn’t ease.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Hunter said, “I’ll be checking on the horses. Lord knows we’re desperately short of mounts. If someone leaves a door or a paddock open, we’ll all be afoot.”
“Of course. Good night, Hunter.”
“Good night, ma’am. Rest easy. Those Culpeppers won’t make a move until all the work has been done for them.”
“What?”
“They might snipe at the boys from time to time, but the Culpeppers are raiders, not ranchers. They don’t know one end of a cow from the other.”
“Then why do they want the Ladder S?”
“They’re being hunted for what they did after the war.”
Though Hunter’s expression didn’t change, there was a quality to his voice that made Penny glad her name wasn’t Culpepper.
“They’ll wait for us to round up all the cattle and break the horses,” Hunter said.
“And then?”
Hunter smiled slowly. It wasn’t a warm gesture.
“Then the Culpeppers will make a bad mistake,” he said. “So sleep easy, ma’am. We’re weeks from any shooting.”
Hunter turned and went outside. He expected to find Elyssa in the barn, fussing over Leopard. In the time he had been on the Ladder S, he had discovered that she often went to the stallion when something upset her.
And Hunter had no doubt that Elyssa was upset. He had seen a turmoil in her eyes that belied the coolness of her words when she left the kitchen.
The barn was dark and empty but for Bugle Boy and Leopard. Hunter lit a lantern and walked down the wide center aisle. The stallions had their heads over the stall doors as though they were carrying on a silent equine conversation with each other.
Bugle Boy nickered at Hunter in greeting. Leopard lifted his head, sniffed audibly at the man’s scent, and returned to hanging his head over the stall door.
Hunter talked to both horses for a few moments before he checked the feed and water in each stall. Though it wasn’t necessary, he brought more fresh water, hay, and grain to both animals, for both had been worked hard in the past week.
Leopard accepted Hunter’s presence in the stall without a fuss, even when Hunter ran his hand down the stallion’s sleek, muscular neck.
“Maybe Sassy is right about you,” Hunter said softly. “Maybe you only fight if a fight is offered.”
After a final pat to Leopard’s spotted hide, Hunter blew out the lantern and left the barn. Though his voice had been gentle with the horses, his expression at the moment was savage.
Sassy must have run off to dance with her lover, Hunter thought bitterly.
A full moon poured light over the land, caressing the darkness with a thousand subtle shades of silver. The beauty of it squeezed Hunter’s heart.
Once he had courted Belinda beneath a moon like this.
And many times she had betrayed him beneath the same ravishing light.
Which one of those faint paths did Sassy take? Hunter asked the night silently. And where will he meet her? On B Bar land or on Ladder S?
For a time Hunter stood motionless in the moonlight. In his mind he went over the faint web of paths that began out beyond the kitchen and herb gardens. Though no one path stood out, together they bound the Ladder S and the B Bar as surely as a spider’s web.
A man sitting on the ridge above Wind Gap could look out over all of those vague trails. The full moon would offer plenty of light to a sharp-eyed watcher.
Won’t she be surprised when she finds me waiting up on the ridge for her to come back?
Then I’ll tear a strip off of her for risking everything just for some slap and tickle with her lover.
With long, impatient strides, Hunter walked the length of the barn. Once he was behind the barn, he skirted the large kitchen garden and headed down the row of fruit trees that shielded tender garden plants from the cold winds of spring. To his right House Creek seethed and foamed musically, a liquid counterpoint to the elegant silver light of the moon.
Hunter was so certain of his goal—and Elyssa’s—that he almost missed seeing her. She was walking away from him, down one of the long rows of the herb garden. She looked ethereal, a woman spun from moonlight and pale silk, a silver wraith that left no trace of her passage on the ground.
Reflexively Hunter froze, merging his outline into that of a big apple tree. Dark clothes, dark hair, dark beard stubble, sun-darkened skin…Hunter was invisible.
Then he turned his head. A bar of moonlight fell between apple branches and touched his face. His eyes gleamed like hammered silver.
This time she hasn’t gone to her lover, Hunter thought with harsh satisfaction.
This time.
But that didn’t explain away all the other times whose only evidence was the ghostly web of trails knitting together the two ranches.
Hunter watched as Elyssa slowly worked her way down a row of herbs, caressing a leaf here, a tiny flower there. Her fingers were like pale, delicate flames moving among the plants.
The stillness of the autumn night was so complete that Hunter could hear the glide of Elyssa’s silk skirts over leaves and stems, the liquid sighs of the creek, and the musical whisper of a waltz breathed into the moonlight.
Pausing, Elyssa bent over one of the rosemary bushes that grew at the end of every row of herbs. Speaking words Hunter couldn’t make out, she traced the bush’s tallest branches with her fingertips.
When Elyssa moved away and walked down another row, her steps brought her within a few feet of the motionless Hunter. Her whimsical words slowly became understandable to him.
“Ah, Viscount Oregano,” Elyssa murmured. “How well you look tonight in your green waistcoat.”
Bending low, she cupped a stem of oregano in her hand. When she released the stem, it swayed gently, as though dancing.
“Were it not for your gently rooted condition,” she whispered, “I would gather you up in my arms and waltz away the night. Think of the scandal…”
Smiling, Elyssa moved on to another group of plants.
“Duchess Peppermint, I did not expect you to be here tonight,” Elyssa murmured. “I am honored.”
She curtsied deeply, rose, and cocked her head as though listening to someone speak. Then she smiled sadly and gently stroked the edges of the peppermint leaves. Plucking one, she tucked it into her mouth and chewed lazily.
“Such a tasty fringe you have on your dress,” Elyssa said. “I must have the name of your seamstress. The same as Countess Spearmint’s? Ah, I should have guessed.”
Elyssa bent down to brush her cheek against the waist-high peppermint plant. Then she straightened and moved on once more.
From time to time she stopped and inhaled complex herbal fragrances as though they were costly French perfumes. Then she continued on, touching, tasting, immersing herself in the scented welcome of her garden.
She didn’t notice Hunter in the dense moon shadow of the apple tree. Slowly she waltzed by him. Humming to herself, her eyes closed, she went down the garden row by touch alone, calling each plant by a common name and a fanciful title.
Snippets of conversation came back to Hunter, wounding him in ways he didn’t understand.
Then he did understand, and wished he hadn’t.
Little Em was like that. There were no playmates for her at home, so she named every rock and tree and bird.
And she sang to them.
Grief for his dead child raked Hunter with hooked claws, bringing pain like black blood welling in the moonlight. Motionless, Hunter let the pain drench him as he had so many times before.
Slowly, heartbeat
by heartbeat, agony drained away into the darkness of night.
At the end of the row, Elyssa turned and began walking back toward Hunter. Eyes still closed, she came up the outer row of the garden, keeping herself oriented by touching herbs on one side and the trunks of fruit trees on the other.
“Baronet Parsley, you grow more robust every day. Your seeds will overflow my hands this fall, and your children will overflow my garden next year.”
The fluid murmuring of the creek was Elyssa’s only answer. She needed none other.
“Ah, Princess Rosemary. What an unparalleled honor. Your presence graces my humble garden.”
Elyssa stopped by the plant whose branches lifted like a hundred-armed candelabra toward the moon. The pale undersides of the narrow leaves glowed with ghostly radiance. It was as though tiny, spectral tongues of fire licked over the plant.
“What a magnificent dress,” Elyssa murmured. “There is none to equal it. And your fragrance would make roses weep with envy.”
Skillfully Elyssa picked a sprig of rosemary and rolled it between her palms, inhaling deeply of its scent. When she bent her head over her hands, her hair burned and shimmered as though silver flames were concealed within.
Hunter burned, too, consumed by the wildfire that had ignited when he rode up to the Ladder S and found Elyssa standing on the porch, bathed in lantern light.
He had never felt a hunger so deep, even when Belinda had teased and tormented him into marriage.
I should have turned around and ridden out, Hunter thought. Just like I should turn around and go back to the house.
But he hadn’t.
And he didn’t.
Elyssa stole another sprig of rosemary, unbuttoned the center of her bodice, and tucked the rosemary between her breasts.
Hunter forgot to breathe.
He wondered if Elyssa had seen him and was teasing him with a glimpse of her pale, perfect breasts. The sight of her gliding across the kitchen, her arms held out to him, was burned into his memory. Watching her fingers gliding over supple, scented leaves made him want to howl his frustration like a wolf.
Elyssa was a silver wildfire consuming him.
Distantly Hunter realized why Elyssa’s scent was always so pleasing to him. She wore rosemary and thyme rather than the heavy magnolia perfume favored by Belinda.
Without meaning to, Hunter took a step toward Elyssa, then another, like a wild animal lured unwillingly by a fire burning in the center of night.
On the third step a twig snapped beneath Hunter’s boot.
10
With a startled sound, Elyssa spun around. In the moonlight her eyes were wide, dark, as unreadable as the night itself.
When Elyssa realized that Hunter was near, she quickly turned her back. Her normally deft fingers fumbled with the tiny buttons on her bodice as she tried to fasten it up once more.
“What are you doing out here?” Elyssa asked, her back still turned to Hunter. “I thought you’d be waltzing with Penny.”
“I wanted to see who you were meeting.”
“Meeting? In the garden? At night?”
“Yes,” Hunter said.
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“For a little…conversation.”
The last stubborn button finally allowed itself to be pushed back through its hole.
Elyssa took a swift breath to collect herself. Then she turned and confronted the very man who had driven her to the solace of her garden in the first place.
“Clever of you to guess,” she said.
Hunter’s mouth flattened.
“A little civilized conversation is so hard to find lately,” Elyssa continued, her voice low and artificially sweet.
“Hoping to meet Mickey?” Hunter asked with false calm. “Or is it Bill you’re pining for?”
“I was ‘pining for’ a bit of peace and quiet. People can be so trying.”
“Women in particular,” Hunter retorted.
“I was thinking of one man in particular. A man who is rude without reason. Abrupt. Impossible. And dead wrong. Surely you, of all people, understand my need?”
“Conversation,” he said.
“Words,” she agreed. “One after another. Pleasantries. Gallantries. Foreign to you, I’m certain, but not to my garden.”
“You talk to your plants.”
“Kindly.”
Hunter struggled not to smile. He almost succeeded.
“I also weed, prune, mulch, fertilize, water, and generally pamper them to the best of my abilities,” Elyssa said.
“I noticed.”
“Remarkable.”
Hunter ignored the barb.
“Whenever things upset you,” he said slowly, “you come to the herb garden, don’t you?”
“It’s a habit I picked up in England. I spent so much time in the garden they called me a peasant, among other things.”
Silence gathered while Hunter tried not to stare at the five buttons that had been undone so that a sprig of rosemary could lie in the velvet shadow between Elyssa’s breasts.
When he spoke, it was without thinking.
“Who is Bill Moreland to you?” Hunter demanded.
“My father’s stepbrother.”
“No relationship?”
“As I said, my father’s—”
“Stepbrother,” Hunter finished curtly. “No blood relationship.”
“In a word, none. I used to call Bill an uncle, but it was a courtesy title.”
Hunter’s eyes narrowed as he thought about the reasons why a girl might no longer call a man her uncle. Sex came to mind first.
“So Bill is a courtesy uncle?” Hunter asked.
“Yes.”
“Too bad. With the Culpepper gang, you need something with more grit than a ‘courtesy uncle’ has to offer.”
“Something such as you?” Elyssa asked acidly.
The corner of Hunter’s mouth lifted in a smile as narrow as his eyes.
“No, Sassy. I’m a gentleman.”
Elyssa laughed.
“A gentleman,” she repeated sardonically. “How kind of you to point it out. Somehow I had managed to overlook it entirely.”
The cool dismissal in Elyssa’s tone rubbed Hunter’s already raw nerves.
“Leash that tongue of yours,” Hunter said, “or I’ll take what you’ve been promising me.”
“I never promised you anything but wages.”
“Didn’t you?” he taunted. “What about when you waltzed up to me in the kitchen and stood so close I couldn’t breathe without taking your own breath inside me?”
“Do forgive me,” she said recklessly. “I’ll be certain never to ask you to dance again!”
“If I weren’t a gentleman,” Hunter said bluntly, “I would have taken the invitation in your smile and kissed you breathless.”
“No man has ever made me breathless.”
Hunter smiled.
Abruptly Elyssa realized that baiting Hunter was not like baiting her English cousins. They hadn’t sent an elemental female awareness through her nerves.
Hunter did.
Especially when he stood as he was standing now, so close that his heat radiated through her clothing, sinking into her very flesh.
“Dance with me,” he said softly.
“I thought you had lost the ability.”
“So did I.”
With that Hunter bowed and held out his hand as though they were on a polished dance floor with silken ladies and well-dressed men all around.
Automatically Elyssa put her hand in Hunter’s. Without speaking he led her toward the stream, where cottonwood leaves whispered and trembled with each breath of wind. Beneath one huge old tree the ground was clear of everything but fallen leaves. They made a hushed carpet underfoot.
“I’ll stumble,” Elyssa said shakily.
“I’ll catch you.”
Hunter turned and faced her. Deliberately he took Elyssa’s left hand and put it against his chest. On
ly then did he slide his right hand from the curve of her waist to the small of her back.
The intimacy of the act made Elyssa’s mouth go dry. Other men had held her like this and she had been unmoved. Some had tried to hold her closer, which had only annoyed her.
None of those men had made her pulse race. None of them had made her dizzy with a touch, a glance. None of them had made her feel lighter than fire, more delicate, more mysterious.
Hunter did.
For Elyssa it was like being in one of her restless dreams—darkness and moonlight, the scent of rosemary and the rippling murmur of water, Hunter’s eyes watching her with a hunger that made her heart turn over.
“Sing for us,” he whispered.
At first Elyssa’s throat refused to cooperate. She swallowed and tried again.
The husky, hesitant strains of a waltz lifted into the night.
Hunter gathered Elyssa into his arms and began to dance as though in a ballroom suffused with laughter and lamplight. Gracefully she followed his lead, despite the uneven ground.
When Elyssa stumbled, she felt the power of Hunter’s lean body. He lifted her without effort, breathed a word over her hair, and set her back on her feet once more in a swirl of silk.
“What did you say?” she whispered.
“Nothing.”
“But you did.”
Without warning Hunter turned in a full circle, then another, then a third, spinning Elyssa with him until she was breathless. She smiled, watching him with yearning in her eyes and a song on her lips.
“I dreamed of this,” Elyssa said huskily.
“Of dancing?”
“Dancing. Moonlight. You.”
She felt the subtle tightening of Hunter’s body.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My cousins berated me for not being coy.”
Hunter didn’t want to talk about how Elyssa’s loose conduct had shocked her proper English cousins. He didn’t even want to think about it.
He just wanted to enjoy a bit of it himself before he called a halt and taught Elyssa that all men couldn’t be controlled by the sleek, hot promise of a woman’s body.
With an eagerness Hunter barely concealed, he allowed his arms to do what they had been wanting to do for a long time. Slowly he pulled Elyssa close, then closer still.
Autumn Lover Page 13
