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My Lord Beaumont

Page 20

by Unknown


  He didn't look like he had any intention of seeing reason. She cast a brief glance at Bull and Captain Tyler, who were watching them speculatively, and retreated a little further. She considered turning and taking to her heels, but he was far too close by then. "Your startin' to scare the hell out of me!"

  "Good!" Adrian ground out, pushing his face up to her angrily. "Because you scared the hell out of me! If you ever pull a damned fool stunt like that again, so help me, Danielle Cooper, I'm going to see that you don't sit comfortably for a week."

  Danielle plunked her hands on her hips. "Well! You needn't try to turn me up sweet now, your worship! I ain't about to let you play with me arse when you won't even see reason!"

  Adrian felt a dull red heat creep into his cheeks and cast an anguished look over his shoulder. Bull and the captain, he saw to his relief, had moved down to the river's edge and were trying to coax Lavinia across. He turned back to Danielle, severely tempted to throttle her, but finally the humor of the situation struck him and his lips twitched. "You have the most shocking mouth on you of any female I have ever met," he admonished half-heartedly.

  She gave him an impish grin, wriggling her brows wickedly. "Give you some interesting ideas, did it?"

  "Indeed, it did," he murmured, threw a glance over his shoulder, and saw that the others were still occupied, and snatched Danielle behind a nearby tree. He pulled her against him then, cupping her buttocks in his hands in a way that was half-playful, half-sensual. "It made me think about playing with your arse and discovering what you can do with that mouth besides shock me."

  She reached up and touched the black beard he'd grown since they'd been cast ashore, tugging at it playfully. He'd tried to shave it with his knife and discovered he didn't have that much of an affinity for pain. She was glad he hadn't shaved it. It made it easier for her to think of him as just Adrian and not Lord Beaumont. "I'd be more than happy to show you."

  His eyes lit with both anticipation and amusement, and a slow, sensual smile dawned. "Would you?" But then he sighed deeply, kissed the tip of her nose, and hugged her tightly to him for a moment before he released her. "Soon, infant, soon." He tapped her chin up when she looked away from him in disappointment. "You'll remember your promise?" he asked, smiling faintly.

  She smiled back at him and nodded.

  "I'll hold you to it." He bent his head and brushed his lips lightly across hers in a gentle salute. "Shall we join the others and see if we can induce Lavinia to join us?"

  "You can induce all day and tomorrow too, if you like. But the only way you're going to get her across is to drag her."

  Danielle was proven correct in her assumption. After nearly twenty minutes of coaxing and shouted directions, Adrian swam the river again. It was harder, he discovered, without fear driving him as it had when he'd swum the river the first time, and he found he had to rest when he got there before he could even contemplate standing. Or perhaps it was only that he'd swum in twice in quick succession. Regardless, he knew he couldn't swim it again without a reasonable period of rest, and he began to feel like the fox and the chicken with both Danielle and Bull on the other side of the river. He kept an eye on them and used his rest time to argue with Lavinia over the best way to proceed.

  She refused to contemplate walking it as Danielle had or submitting herself to the indignity of straddling the thing. Adrian, she maintained, would have to carry her.

  Adrian maintained that he wasn't about to try it, that it could not be done. If she wanted to be carried, then he would swim, pulling her as he had before.

  She couldn't contemplate that. She hadn't forgiven him for striking her the time before, and she was still bruised from it for that matter.

  Adrian grew bored with arguing. Moreover, he was anxious to get back to Danielle. Bull hadn't attempted anything since their last encounter, but Adrian suspected he was only awaiting the opportunity. He had no intention of giving him the opportunity. "Have it your own way," he said coolly and scooped her up and deposited her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  She shrieked in outrage and began to struggle. "Put me down! Put me down this instant! How dare you handle me in such a way!"

  Adrian had taken a cautious step onto the log. "Don't tempt me! Be still. I doubt I can walk it with you in the best of conditions. I know damned well I can't if you won't be still."

  For a wonder, she went absolutely limp. Danielle, watching from the far bank, thought for a time that Lavinia had fainted. She discovered, however, once Adrian had picked his way slowly across and was nearing them, that this was not the case. She heard Lavinia's muttered curses then and thought, with a touch of amusement, that Lavinia was only wishing she was senseless.

  Bull and Captain Tyler waded out and reached up for her when Adrian had gone as far as he could, taking her and carrying her ashore while Adrian dismounted from the 'bridge' and followed them out. They headed upstream then, deciding to make camp at the river for the night. They needed fresh meat more than they needed to go further. By making camp at once, while they still had several hours of light left, they knew they would have some hope of it.

  Adrian was a little surprised when Bull offered to try his hand with the fishing line. He hadn't refused to do any task that had been given him before, but he'd performed them with a sullenness that voiced his objection to taking orders from Adrian all the same. And he hadn't once volunteered for any task.

  Adrian was instantly suspicious. Aside from the quite natural motive to find food, however, he could think of no other reason for his sudden enthusiasm for work. Nor could he think of any reasonable objection, and so he handed over the fishline, merely watching Bull's departure speculatively for several moments before he turned back to give Lavinia the task of gathering firewood and Captain Tyler the task of setting up sleeping shelters.

  Lavinia objected at once. She was fagged to death, she informed him, from their travels. She demanded a little time for freshening up. Danielle could come with her and could gather the firewood when she, Lavinia, no longer needed her assistance.

  Adrian was on the point of informing her firstly that Danielle wasn't her maid and secondly that everyone must pull their own weight or do without. It occurred to him, however, that he'd been particularly hard on Lavinia. Mostly it was because he simply hadn't given her a thought. Partly it was because she'd been such a nuisance that, if civilization hadn't precluded such a thing, he would have strangled her and left her in a hedge long since. It occurred to him now, however, that if this journey was hard on Danielle, who'd lived with hardship all her life, then it must be doubly so for Lavinia who'd been reared as a lady and thus pampered and spoiled unto virtual uselessness.

  He merely told Lavinia, therefore, that Danielle could accompany her, not as her personal maid, but so that the two of them might lend each other a modicum of protection. They were not, he added, handing Captain Tyler one of his pistols, to stray too far from the camp area. If they ran into trouble, Captain Tyler would be close enough then to be of some help to them.

  Patting Danielle's cheek then with careless affection, he informed her that she was to do nothing but rest. She was not to allow Lavinia to bully her into waiting upon her. He left two thoroughly irritated females behind him then and sauntered off with the typical male's blithe certainty that his orders would be obeyed to the letter, and went off to find his 'infant' something to tempt her appetite.

  Both stared after him in high dudgeon. There was no conversation between them. In the first place, they had nothing in common. In the second, Lavinia did not converse with the 'lower orders' except for the purpose of directing them to see to her comfort.

  Danielle stopped as soon as they were out of sight of the camp. Lavinia, with a sniff of disapproval, continued. Danielle stared after her for several moments, loathe to follow her, loathe to point out that it was unnecessary to go further, and loathe to disobey Adrian's express orders. After a few moments, she followed the older woman,
looking back over her shoulder now and again to gauge just how far they'd come.

  "Ah! The perfect place," Lavinia exclaimed just as Danielle was on the point of refusing to go another step.

  Danielle couldn't see that it was any better than any other place they might have stopped, but she didn't point it out. She was hot and tired, and suddenly Lavinia's idea of 'freshening up' began to sound very appealing. She wasn't dirty, precisely, for although they slept on the ground nights without even so much as a thin blanket beneath them, they never slept on bare dirt. And, not only had she just taken a dip in the river, but they'd been through every stream and brook from the St. Marys back to the coast. She hadn't scrubbed however, either herself or her clothes, in quite some time, and she suddenly felt in dire need of it. It would have been nice, of course, if they'd had soap with them, but a concentrated scrubbing would be better than merely wading through.

  And they had privacy--of sorts. Captain Tyler was the closest to them, and Danielle simply couldn't imagine him sneaking down to watch her and Lavinia bathe and do their laundry. And there were screening bushes that grew almost to the water's edge and added to the feeling of privacy.

  Having made her decision, she moved to one of those screening bushes, checked the area carefully for snakes, and began to undress. Lavinia, she saw with a touch of amusement, was performing much the same ritual, beating about and prodding her 'boudoir' with a stick she'd found before, satisfied, she hoisted her skirts and began to remove what few linens she had left to her name.

  Danielle began to feel a rather reluctant sympathy for the woman. She was wearing rags herself, of course, but she, at least, was used to it. It must be hard, she thought, to be reduced to such as this after being accustomed to having the very best of everything all her life.

  She shrugged it off, since it was reluctant, and finished undressing. It didn't take her long as she had nothing but a shirt and breeches to remove, and she wadded them in a ball and headed for the water. Placing them under a rock in the stream bed, she left them to soak while she waded in up to her knees and squatted down to bathe. She had scarcely begun when Lavinia sent her soiled linens sailing out to her, smacking her in the back of the head with them. She turned to glare at the woman.

  "You may wash those," Lavinia said regally, "when you wash your own things." And she settled herself on the riverbank.

  Danielle flung the linens onto the riverbank. "I'll think about it," was all she said however, and she turned her attention to her bath once more. Scooping up a handful of sand, she scrubbed it experimentally along her arm. It was abrasive, but not unbearably so as long as she didn't scrub too hard, and it left her skin feeling cleaner than merely rubbing it with water did. Deciding it was a fairly good substitute for soap, she proceeded, even going so far as to scrub her scalp with it. It was a nuisance to get it out of her hair however, and she spent far more time trying to get it out than she'd spent getting it in in the first place. Finally satisfied, she waded to the edge of the river and began pounding her shirt and breeches with a rock. They were made of thick, coarse material, however, and she was tired of fighting them long before she was satisfied with them. Shrugging, for they were at least cleaner than they had been, she rung them out and tossed them over the bushes to allow the water to drip out of them.

  She eyed Lavinia's linens for several moments, considering whether to wash them, fling them in Lavinia's face, or leave them where they lay. Finally, she shrugged. She had nothing else to do after all, except to wait around until her clothes were somewhat dryer. So she took Lavinia's linens and beat the hell out of them with a rock. She was just a little horrified when she discovered she'd thoroughly perforated Lavinia's linens in her enthusiasm, but then she dismissed it. Lavinia would certainly throw them away at her first opportunity to get more, and if she complained, Danielle had only to point out that she wasn't a trained washerwoman and had done her best.

  She thought, however, that it might be just as well if Lavinia didn't notice it right off. With that in mind, she rung them out and moved around the bush before she spread them out to dry. She checked her own clothes then. They were hardly dryer than they had been when she'd hung them up, but some of the water had rolled down to accumulate in the bottom edges of the fabric. She rung them again and was trying to decide whether to put them on as they were or to give them a few more minutes to drip when something caught her eye in the wood downriver.

  She'd just decided it was her imagination when her vision focused upon it with horrible clarity. She froze then, like prey that has caught the sent of the predator, her heart suspended in her chest, her breath caught in her lungs, her eyes widening until they dominated her ashen face.

  He was tall and bronze and virtually as naked as she was. Naked! It was amazingly insane, but that thought was the first that registered in her frozen mind. She acted upon it, without conscious volition. Diving behind the bush and seizing her breeches with trembling hands, she shoved one leg in and hung the big toe of her other foot in the crotch. She rolled half way down the bank before she managed to untangle herself and thrust the other leg where it belonged. If she gathered cuts or bruises along the way, she was unaware of it. She hopped to her feet and jerked her breeches up over her buttocks in one movement, holding them one-handed to keep them up while she grabbed her shirt.

  Lavinia, she finally noticed, was apparently unaware of their 'guest'. "It ain't none of my business, an' I don't want to alarm you none, but if I was you I'd get off me arse an' sashay on back towards camp now . . . ."

  "Must you always be so crude and vulgar!" Lavinia responded haughtily. "And why should I, anyway? I like it here."

  "Suit yourself!" Danielle snapped, having jerked her shirt on. "But I'm takin' me crude and vulgar arse back to camp."

  "You really oughtn't be in such a hurry. I expect your friend will be here any time now. I went to so much trouble to arrange this for the two of you."

  Danielle stared at her as if she'd grown horns. "Friend?" she said blankly. "Well I sure as hell ain't waitin' for him!"

  "And here he is," Lavinia said triumphantly, rising.

  Danielle felt her jaw drop as Bull stepped from the bushes. She stared at him blankly, unable to comprehend what was transpiring. Bull was supposed to be fishing downriver. What was he doing here? Why wasn't Lavinia surprised? And why was it that no one was worried about the savage she'd seen but her?

  She might almost have welcomed Bull at that moment, except that his expression was distinctly unpleasant. She realized that just before he grabbed her. She didn't even struggle at first. She was too surprised.

  Lavinia chuckled. "Have fun, dear Danielle. And you, too, Bull. Don't wear her out too badly, mind you. Adrian might want her again. I don't really think so, but you never can tell."

  It coalesced then, finally. She'd just been set up.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was hopeless, and Danielle knew it. But she'd never given in without a fight before, and she didn't now. With a shriek of pure outrage, she flew at him, clawing, kicking, and pounding. Bull was plainly stunned, and slow to react, his first instinct being to release the wild cat he'd seized, for in the space of a few seconds she'd pounded him from knee to nose and taken half the hide from his face and neck.

  He was a powerfully built man, however, and when he did react, the effect was annihilation. One backhanded swing sent Danielle flying backwards. She stuck the ground so hard it drove the air from her lungs and knocked her half-unconscious. She couldn't breathe for long agonizing moments. She couldn't move. She was only vaguely aware of her surroundings. As if from a great distance, she heard voices, voices she didn't recognize at first but finally knew to be Bull and Lavinia.

  "You didn't say you were going to kill her!"

  "Look wot the bleedin' ‘ore did ta me! I oughta break 'er bleedin' neck!" He was silent for several moments. "Maybe I will at that--when I'm done. She cain't carry no tales if she's dead, can she?"


  "For the Lord's sake! Do you think Adrian won't guess? He isn't a fool! Look at you! She's scarred you for life."

  Danielle struggled to pry her eyelids open and saw that they were standing over her. It took an effort to do that much. She could do no more, and she realized with an odd sense of detachment that she was going to die. She watched, with the same peculiar lack of interest as Bull pulled his knife from his belt.

  At that point, Lavinia did a truly puzzling thing. She gasped and slowly wilted to the ground. Bull whirled then, to face the threat beyond her vision, and, in a moment, something large and lean and lethal sprang upon him, carrying him to the ground. The sounds of a desperate struggle filtered through Danielle's ringing ears.

  Slowly the numbness left her and pain took its place. The pain drove away the detachment, and the need to escape began to thrum through her veins. She struggled to pull herself up and found that she couldn't. Finally, she rolled to her side and then to her stomach. From there, she pushed herself up on trembling arms and dragged a knee beneath her before she had to stop and rest, allowing her head to droop forward and closing her eyes as her head swam sickeningly and her vision darkened.

  When she opened her eyes again, the blackness had receded. She got her other knee under her and crawled slowly, painfully until she came upon an obstacle. There she stopped again, resting on her hands and knees and finally turned and sat down, pushing herself painfully erect until she could lean back against the tree.

  She closed her eyes and sat very still, fighting the wave of nausea that assailed her, trying to locate a specific source of pain. Her elbows and forearms burned and throbbed, but that was no more than a friction burn. Her knees hurt, too, and her back produced more than a few twinges when she moved. Bruises, she finally decided. And then there was her head. She lifted her hand and felt the back carefully, searching for the crack in her skull. Nothing wet and sticky touched her fingers. Nor did she discover any knots.

 

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