Frontier Bride (Harlequin Historical)

by Ana Seymour

  “We’re in luck,” Ethan said after only a few minutes. “There it is, just up ahead.”

  She leaned over on her horse to peer around him, then winced as she caught sight of the deer, lying at the foot of a large, decaying log. It was utterly still, its head bent awkwardly backward due to the width of its antlers. They approached it cautiously, and Ethan jumped from his horse. “It’s dead,” he said.

  Hannah could now see that the animal’s eyes were half-open and its long tongue hung out of its mouth, touching the dirt. She shuddered. “It was so… splendid,” she said.

  Ethan walked over and took hold of the tip of an antler, lifting the head for her to see. “They are a noble-looking animal,” he said. “And they serve a noble cause, namely, keeping us alive.”

  Reluctantly she slid from her horse. “I wish I hadn’t shot it.”

  “If it will make you feel any better, your Major Edgemont actually did the shooting. He just thought it was a good excuse to hold you in his arms while he did it.”

  Hannah did not want to be responsible for the animal’s death, but she also did not want her efforts at learning to use a gun to be belittled. “I held the gun. I pulled the trigger. And it’s my shoulder that feels like it was stepped on by a bull.”

  Ethan frowned and dropped the deer’s head. “Are you hurting, Hannah?” he asked, suddenly solicitous.

  She bit her lip to keep it from quivering. “I guess I’m not as much of a frontierswoman as I thought.”

  He came over to her and took her chin in his hand. “Don’t you believe it,” he said. “Not one woman in twenty out West can fire a rifle. Back in Philadelphia, not one woman in a thousand, I’d wager.”

  “I’m not sure that I’ll be firing one again soon.” Her eyes went once again to the dead deer.

  “Judging from the way Webster was shooting the other day, I’d say you might have to.”

  She looked up sharply. All at once she was reminded of their encounter at the dance last night when he had accurately surmised that Randolph had kissed her. In her distress over the deer, she had forgotten for a moment that she had determined to stay away from Ethan. Had forgotten that he engendered feelings in her that were dangerous to her peace of mind…and to her future. Standing steps away from the animal whose life she had ended, she was reminded that the things one does in life have consequences. Sometimes grave ones.

  She took a step backward. “I would rather not discuss Mr. Webster with you, Captain. Not his hunting ability or any other aspect of his life. Or mine, either, for that matter.”

  He gave her one of those infuriating smiles. “There, I’ve made you angry. Now at least you’re not going to be crying over a dead deer.”

  She glared at him. “What do we do with it?” she asked.

  Ethan’s eyes were still on her, not the deer. “We’ll field-dress it, then tie it over your horse.”

  Hannah looked at the carcass with distaste. “I have to ride with it?”

  “No.” Ethan walked away to pull some rope from the back of his saddle. “You’ll ride with me.”

  She stood as if riveted to the ground while Ethan tied the rope around the deer’s hind legs. “I could use some help to hang it,” he said. “If you’re going to be a frontierswoman, you might as well start now.”

  Reluctantly Hannah moved to his side. “What do you have to do?”

  “We’ll hang it over that limb,” he said, motioning to a nearby tree.

  Hannah bent to help him drag the deer underneath the tree and hold it as he tossed one end of the rope over the limb. The deer’s hair felt warm and smooth under her fingers. Together they pulled on the rope until the deer hung high enough so that its antlers cleared the ground. Then Hannah stepped back quickly as Ethan slit the throat to let its blood drain out in a thick red pool. She felt a sick taste in her throat.

  “You don’t have to watch,” Ethan said.

  “No, you’re right. If I’m going to be a frontiers-woman, I might as well start now.”

  “Good girl.” Ethan nodded his approval. After a few minutes, he swung the animal around and gave it a final shake, then lowered it to cut out the viscera. Hannah viewed the entire process without flinching.

  Ethan worked as quickly as he could. Hannah had grown pale. She’d held up pretty well, but dressing a deer was not the prettiest of sights. He didn’t want to end up with a swooning woman on his hands. “Bring your horse,” he said, trying to distract her.

  He dragged the deer a few steps away from the mess he had made. “I’ll tie it on,” he told her. “You just hold her steady.”

  She looked white and fragile, more like a frightened child than the stalwart young woman he had come to know. He finished his task, then he tied both horses to a young ash tree. “There’s a stream yonder,” he told her. “We can wash up before we start back.”

  Without speaking, she followed him through the darkening woods toward the sound of rushing water. The late afternoon sun was throwing curious patterns through the trees to the soft forest floor. Hannah took a deep breath. She felt as if she’d learned her first lesson about survival in this land. The first of how many yet to learn? she wondered.

  Together they crouched by the stream and washed their hands. “So now you’ve shot and dressed your first deer,” Ethan said, glancing at her. She had pushed up her sleeves. Her arms were white and slender. Deceptively fragile, like the rest of her. On the trail he had seen her carry armloads of wood and stretch a tent rope taut. Today she had pulled her weight as they had hoisted the deer. And she had shot a rifle that would bowl over some soldiers he knew.

  “You dressed the deer,” she reminded him. “And I thought you said that Major Edgemont was the one who really shot it.”

  Ethan grinned at her. “I was just trying to make you feel better. You looked like you were about to pass out on me.”

  She turned toward him indignantly. “I’ve never fainted in my life, Captain Reed, and I don’t intend to start now.”

  Ethan sat back on the bank, watching as she reached carefully under her skirt to dry her hands on one of her petticoats. He caught just a flash of trim ankles and felt an unsettling in his middle. “Since I’ve kissed you, not once but twice, don’t you think you could call me Ethan—at least when we’re alone?” he asked softly.

  “I hadn’t intended to be alone with you, Captain. And I do not intend that it shall happen again.” There was anger in her eyes as she answered him, and there was something else, too. Alarm? Was she afraid of him or of herself? Either way, he should get to his feet and leave it alone. To all appearances Webster had finally discovered her. It shouldn’t take long now for him to put a claim on her. Which meant that Ethan should be staying the hell away from her. But some unmanageable part of him kept him from moving.

  “We had a rather thorough kiss the other night, if I remember. And I do remember, Hannah.”

  Hannah hugged her knees close to her chest. “What do you want from me, Captain? Can’t you go to your…friend, Mrs. McCoy, for this kind of thing?”

  The anger had won out over the alarm. Ethan smiled and felt a perverse stab of pleasure. His relationship with the fort’s buxom female trader obviously did not sit well with her.

  “Polly and I have been friends for years,” he said casually.

  “Good friends,” Hannah added.

  “Yes, good friends.”

  “So go bother her with your talk of kissing, Captain, and let me alone.”

  There was no doubt about it. He knew the signs. Hannah was in the throes of that miserable, nasty, gutgnawing feeling called jealousy. The same kind of feeling he had had last night after she had come in from kissing Webster outside the dance. The kind of feeling he had right now just remembering it. Suddenly he lost the urge to bait her. “In case you’re interested, Polly and I have decided we can’t be anything more than friends.”

  Her eyes betrayed her with a quick flash of interest before she said nonchalantly, “I’m sure I couldn’t care
less what you and Mrs. McCoy have decided.”

  Ethan gave a rueful chuckle. He didn’t blame her for not owning up to the truth. Hannah was smart enough to see that there was no future in letting herself be attracted to a rover like himself. “It’s Randolph you’re interested in now, is that it?”

  Hannah ignored the question and pushed herself to her feet. “Can we go back to the fort?” she asked.

  Ethan stood beside her, unable to resist one last comment. He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “I will remember that kiss, Hannah. And if Webster doesn’t make you melt in his arms, the way you did in mine that night, then, mark my words, you’ll find yourself remembering it, too.”

  * * *

  “Does this mean you’ll be scratching at my door trying to beg your way back into my bed?” Polly McCoy gave Ethan a good-natured shove that almost toppled him backward off the bench. They were sitting at her table, and over two pints of ale he had just finished recounting his day in the woods, including the final encounter with Hannah. He righted himself on the bench and grinned. Rough horseplay seemed to come naturally to Polly. Outside of the bedroom, she sometimes seemed more like a man than a woman. Though a blind man could see that she was most definitely female.

  “One thing has nothing to do with the other,” he explained impatiently. “I had no illusions about forming a liaison with Mistress Forrester. We just had a couple of weak moments when we were thrown together in such close proximity on the trail.”

  “Uh-huh.” Polly raised her thick, rusty-colored eyebrows. “Did ya ever notice how you start to talk fancy and Boston-like when you get riled about something?”

  “I’m not riled.”

  “Well, you sure act riled every time you talk about her. I’m beginning to think you’ve gone soft in the head, Ethan Reed.”

  “She’s an attractive woman, that’s all. And she has a lot of spirit. But there’ll never be anything between us.”

  “She’s an attractive woman, he says,” Polly mimicked. “And she’s got that long blond hair and that long skinny body that has half the rummies in the fort with their tongues on the floor.”

  “Are you jealous, Polly?” Ethan teased.

  “Not on your account, you lout.”

  They shared a comfortable smile. After Polly’s initial pretense of hurt, deciding to switch their status from lovers to friends had been a mutual decision, one which they both admitted was overdue. They had met each other’s needs over the past few years, but it had been some time since their lovemaking had inspired much passion.

  “So you’re just going to give her up to that weak-kneed bookkeeper?”

  “Webster’s not a bad fellow. Though I’ll admit I have my reservations about leaving him on his own out in the wilderness.”

  “He’s handsome enough, that’s for sure. And he’s a real gentleman toward the ladies.”

  Ethan frowned. “You think he’s handsome?”

  Polly gave him another whack with the side of her hand. “So now who’s the jealous one, mate?”

  Ethan stood up and paced over to the fireplace. “Let’s change the subject, all right? You said that Silas Warren was asking around for some cheap guns?”

  She nodded. “And cheap liquor. Which is a bad combination in anyone’s book.”

  “For the Indians, you think?”

  “I’d put money on it.”

  He rubbed his hand along the smooth wood mantel. “But you don’t know which tribe he’s planning to contact?”

  “All I know is that the rumor is he’s gathering more merchandise than he could possibly handle by himself.”

  “So he must be working with someone?”

  Polly shrugged. “It would take a damn fool to work with slime like Warren, but then I guess there are enough of those in this world.”

  “I’ll do some poking around and see what I can find out.”

  “But you and your party will be leaving soon, won’t you?”

  He nodded. “Unless Bouquet frightens them out of the whole idea with his talk of bloody war parties.”

  Polly shook her head sadly. “Do you suppose we’ll ever find a peaceful way to live together out here?”

  Hannah, Eliza and Nancy ambled along arm in arm, talking and laughing like schoolgirls. “I feel as if I were back in Philadelphia heading down Front Street for an afternoon’s shopping,” Eliza said happily.

  “I don’t think the trading post is going to look much like Front Street,” Hannah observed.

  “As long as they have soap,” Nancy said longingly. “I can’t believe that we’ve already used all of ours. I guess I didn’t plan very well.”

  “You should have known better, Nancy,” Eliza said sarcastically. “After all, don’t you pack up and move your family halfway across the country every month or two?”

  Both the younger women smiled. “I guess we all have to learn as we go along,” Nancy said.

  They had decided on the expedition the night before when the men had returned with the supplies they had purchased to take to the new settlement. There were traps and tanning knives and powder horns, bars of lead to melt into bullets and various types of farming equipment, but none of the little amenities that the women had been hoping to add to the meager stores they had brought from home.

  Hannah had wanted some lengths of worsted to make the trousers Jacob would need to keep up with his growing legs. Eliza had declared that she needed to replenish her stock of teas and herbs. And Nancy had shyly mentioned that she and her daughters needed soap. So the men had agreed that the women should themselves visit the cluster of trading huts that were beginning to form into a little town at the north end of the fort.

  Randolph had given Hannah what seemed an immense amount of money to spend. The money, along with the new feeling of acceptance and equality with her two friends, had Hannah feeling almost giddy. Though she hadn’t thought of herself as a lonely child, she’d never really had girlfriends when she was growing up, and she was finding the experience delightful.

  It had meant a lot to her when Eliza and Nancy had exclaimed over her prowess when she and Ethan had returned yesterday afternoon with the deer. Randolph had not said a word about her trophy, and Ethan had left the horses and deer carcass in the care of a corporal and had stalked off to his quarters. But her two new friends and the children had been enthusiastic with their praise.

  “You’ll have to do the bargaining for us, Hannah,” Nancy teased. “Those lonely traders will give you a better price than they will Eliza or me.”

  “Don’t be silly, Nancy,” she replied with an easy smile. “They’ll hardly look at me when they see that pretty face of yours.”

  Nancy grimaced. “Not when it’s on top of this body.”

  “Pooh,” Eliza said. “You both had those officers drooling in their beer at the dance the other night.”

  “I didn’t see that you were lacking for partners yourself, Eliza,” Hannah said, giving her friend a little nudge.

  They all laughed and continued on out the back gates of the fort and down the dusty street to the Hudson’s Bay outfit, the largest of the traders. The big building had a wooden sidewalk entrance and real glass windows. They went inside, pausing a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dimly lit interior. What they saw was a fantastic jumble of merchandise, easily rivaling any trading dock back in Philadelphia.

  “I think they’ll have soap,” Hannah whispered to Nancy, and they both giggled.

  They dropped their linked arms and walked into the store, marveling at the trappings of civilization that they had not even realized they missed—perfumes and hair ribbons, china and beeswax candles, silk slippers and lace collars. But who was going to wear silk and lace on the frontier? Hannah wondered.

  Tucked at the end of one counter Hannah saw a box of marzipan, the kind her mother had sometimes bought her for a very special treat. She thought of Ethan and his “sweet tooth,” but pushed the memory out of her mind and moved on.

  Suddenly the lou
d, unpleasant voice of Hugh Trask sounded in the doorway. “It’s the ladies’ shopping day,” he said mockingly.

  Hannah’s good mood disintegrated. She couldn’t think of anyone who could spoil a day more effectively. Hugh was with another man, a frightfullooking fellow with dirty clothes and a nasty scar across one missing eye.

  The two men moved into the store. “What are you spending my money on, woman?” Hugh said to Nancy. The light had gone out of her face.

  “I won’t buy much, Hugh,” she said in a low voice. “Just a few personal things for the girls.”

  “See that you don’t,” he said gruffly, then turned to his companion. “Of course, Mistress Hannah, here, will be able to buy whatever she pleases the way she’s got Webster panting after her.”

  The scarred man gave a gurgling chuckle that made Hannah feel sick. Skirting around a table full of iron kettles so that she wouldn’t have to pass the two men, Hannah went to Nancy’s side. “Let’s go down the road and see what else there is before we decide on anything.”

  Gratefully Nancy let Hannah lead her out of the trading post. Hugh and his friend watched them with smirking faces. If she wasn’t a servant, Hannah thought fiercely, she’d slap that smirk right off Hugh Trask’s face.

  “I just want you folks to be aware of the risks.” Colonel Bouquet stood at the head of a long table covered with maps in the post headquarters. “Pontiac is trying to convince the tribes that the British settlers aren’t going to be as easy to deal with as the French trappers were. It appears that a good many of them are listening to him.”

  “What do you have to say about it, Reed?” Seth Baker asked their guide.

  Ethan looked around at the circle of faces. When they reached their destination, the Philadelphia party would be on their own. With the withdrawal of Amos Crawford, there were only three men left. Baker was old. Trask drank too much. And that left Webster, who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with his eyes open. Not a very promising first line of defense against a war party.