Colorado Dawn

by Kaki Warner

  It was after midnight when Ash sensed movement, and he looked up from the fire to see his wife standing in the shadows at the edge of the light, holding something bulky in her arms.

  Frowning, he rose from her chair. The moon had already moved a quarter of the way across the night sky, and the air had a frosty bite to it. Satterwhite had been snoring in his tent for two hours. What was she doing wandering about in the middle of the night?

  He had gotten over his initial fury but was still angry that she thought him less capable because of his injury. He’d withstood that same pitying condescension from his commanding officer, his doctors, and his family. But he wouldn’t tolerate it from his wife.

  “I brought extra quilts,” she said as her little dog rushed past to greet Tricks, who lounged by the warm rocks circling the fire. “Where shall I put them?” She stepped closer and into the light.

  He could see she had been fretting. In their short days together just after their marriage, they might not have had time to learn much about each other, but his wife had seldom been able to mask her thoughts from him. She was too open. Too unguarded. Too ready to accept what was put before her. That artist thing again, he supposed. But whatever it was, that trusting, hopeful smile had captivated him from the first.

  Captivated him now. He was that weak.

  “What do you have there?” she asked, nodding to the tin he’d forgotten he still held in his hand.

  Heat rushed up his neck and he was grateful for the concealing darkness. “Dirt.” Then hearing how daft that sounded, he added, “Many a soldier carries a wee something in his pack to remind him of the place he left behind.” And dirt from home to sprinkle over his grave if he dinna make it back.

  “That’s from Northbridge?”

  “Aye.”

  “Did you miss it terribly?”

  He had to think for a moment. In truth, he’d spent most of his life away from his family’s lands, and when he thought about them at all, it was with a confused mix of memories of his siblings and fights with his father, and an almost overwhelming need to escape. “At first I did,” he admitted. “I missed the idea of it. Of belonging someplace.”

  “And later?”

  He shrugged. “The military became my home. My fellow soldiers were my family.”

  “And yet you still have the tin.”

  “Habit.” Embarrassed to have revealed so much, he slipped it into his pocket and reached for the quilts. But once he had them, he wasn’t sure where to put them and so dumped them on the chair. “Thank you,” he said, facing her again.

  They stood in silence for a moment. Then two. Then longer. He was about to say something to smooth the awkwardness when words tumbled out of her in a rush.

  “I’ve also come to apologize. For our misunderstanding earlier. I meant no insult, Ashby. And I certainly don’t see you as a cripple. But seeing how much pain you were in—­”

  “I’m fine.”

  She looked away, her hands twisting like she was working dough, the signet ring he had given her flashing in the firelight. In view of her feelings, he wondered why she still wore it.

  “I only meant to help, but I seem to have made a tangle of it. I’m sorry.”

  Some of the stiffness eased in his back. “I’m fine, lass,” he said in a gentler tone. “It’s been a long and difficult healing, so it has. But I should not have taken my frustration out on you. We’ll not speak of it again.”

  She let out a deep breath. Her hands seemed more relaxed now.

  He studied her face in the firelight, then came to a decision he knew he would probably regret. “And I offer apologies, as well. I can see it was a shock, me showing up after all this time. It’s obvious you have reservations about going back to Scotland with me, so if it will ease your worries, I give you my word I won’t force my attentions on you. Even if I’ve every right to do so as your lawful husband.”

  Judging by her expression, he probably shouldn’t have said that last part, so he hastily added, “In truth, it will try me sorely to be in the presence of such a beauty as yourself and keep my hands to myself, so it will.”

  She blinked at him. Then laughed. “You’ve been in Ireland too long, milord, to be spouting such blarney with a straight face.”

  He spread his hands in innocence. “You’re a beautiful woman, lass. Even more so than I recall.”

  “You didn’t even recall my name,” she reminded him.

  “I was too busy recalling the rest of you.”

  Another bit of silence, but uncomfortable for a different reason.

  A log settled in the fire, sending up a burst of tiny orange sparks that faded into the stars overhead. The crescent moon skimmed the treetops, and for an instant, silhouetted against its glowing face, a bat swooped on a circling moth. Ash shifted his weight from one foot to the other and tried to think of something to say.

  “Did the poultice help?” she asked after a time.

  “Aye.”

  “You removed it?”

  “And burned it.”

  She arched a brow. “You were truly afraid it would attract bears?”

  “I was afraid you would make me wear it again. It itches.”

  She laughed. He liked the sound of it. He liked standing here in the near darkness, with her scent drifting in the woodsmoke and her voice gentle in his ear.

  “You never told me how you were injured.”

  And he dinna want to now, preferring to keep that sad memory buried in the back of his mind. But she had seen his scars and probably thought she had a right to know how they had gotten there. And since he wasn’t yet ready for her to leave, he told her.

  “We were escorting a munitions detail,” he began. “Transferring a shipment of explosives from the dock to the armory. It was fairly routine. I was laughing with Major Ridgeway about something inane—­I canna even remember what—­when the caisson beside him blew up. The next thing I recall is waking in a hospital bed a fortnight later.”

  “Oh, dear.” Her hand touched his arm. “I’m amazed you survived.”

  “Only because Ridgeway and his mount took the brunt of the explosion. Three other good men were not so lucky.”

  “How sad.” Her hand fell back to her side. He missed the heat and weight of it. “It must have been painful. How long were you in the hospital?”

  “Over two months. It was a confusing time.” Realizing he was running his fingertips over the scar hidden beneath his hair, he clasped his hands behind his back so they wouldn’t betray him again. “I was given laudanum for the pain, so I dinna remember much. If your letter came then, I have no memory of it. I’m sorry about that.”

  “My letter?”

  “The one telling me of your parents’ deaths. Had I known and been able to travel, I would have come to you.”

  She stood unmoving, her eyes glittering in the firelight. Something shifted in her expression, but in the dim light, he couldn’t be certain what it was. “Perhaps if I had known of your injury,” she said with a sad smile, “I would have come to you. It might have changed everything. Now we’ll never know.”

  He dinna know how to respond to that, so he said nothing.

  “Well…”

  Seeing that she was about to leave, he threw out a hand. “Stay.” Then hearing how brusque that sounded, he softened his tone. “It’s a braw night. Perhaps you’ll sit awhile?” He motioned to the chair, saw the quilts piled on the seat and hurriedly shoved them to the dirt.

  She eyed the rumpled bedding.

  “Here.” Snatching a blanket from the ground, he held it out. “You’ll need this. To ward off the chill.”

  Gingerly accepting the proffered blanket, she shook off pine needles and dirt, then tossed it around her shoulders like a shawl. “Thank you,” she murmured, and stepping over the rest of the quilts, sank into the chair.

  He added more wood to the already blazing fire, then stood guard over it, hands clasped once more behind his back.

  Silence again. It str
etched to an agonizing length before she finally broke it. “I so enjoy the nights here in the West.” He looked over to see her smiling up into the night sky. “In England, and in Scotland, too, it is often so overcast all one sees are clouds and more clouds. Until I came here, I never knew there were so many stars in the heavens.”

  His gaze drifted down the curve of her neck, and a memory flashed of another moonlit night when he had kissed that small hollow at the base of her throat and felt the rapid beat of her pulse against his tongue. “Aye. It’s beautiful, so it is,” he murmured, looking away.

  Despite the awkwardness and the heavy silences and troubling memories, he was glad of the company. Too much silence and solitude opened his mind to dark memories and questions he couldn’t answer.

  And the woman beside him posed the biggest question of all.

  He dinna want to return to Scotland without her. He dinna want to go back to the stilted, purposeless world of Viscount Ashby, heir to an earldom. He dinna want to go back, at all.

  At his feet, Agnes circled three times, then settled against the sleeping wolfhound’s warm side, curled into a tight ball, her nose tucked under her front legs. How simple life was for dogs. A friendly pat, a full belly, and a warm place to wait out the night. That was all they needed.

  When had his own life become so complicated that he no longer took time to enjoy such simple contentments? And what had he to show for it?

  Idly, he watched sparks rise with the curling smoke. As he listened to the music of the flames, he thought of the thousands of other campfires he had stared into through the years, and of the soldiers who had stood beside him, sharing its warmth on a lonely night.

  He missed that bond. That camaraderie. The ribald jokes and deep laughter. The trust and discipline that gave meaning to the days and hope through the long nights. He understood the soldier’s life. It had defined him for over seventeen years, and now that it was lost to him forever, he felt adrift. Irrelevant. Such a lack of clear direction was intolerable to a man more suited to action, a man trained to fight and protect. It created within him a driving need to find something else to give him purpose. Ash looked at the woman beside him and wondered if she would ever be part of that.

  “Is it me, lass? Something I’ve done that prevents you from returning home?” With her beside him, he might find his balance again.

  She looked up at him, one side of her face cloaked in shadow, the other tinted pink by the fire. He felt her mind probing his and remembered how intelligent she was, and how clearly she saw the world with her sharply assessing artist’s eye. “Why did you marry me?” she asked.

  Ah, he thought, both dismayed and challenged by the counterattack. He thought for a moment, debating whether he should tell her he’d been taken with her beauty and her fine form and that touch of the Highlands in her coppery hair—­all true, of course, but not the sole reason he had asked her to marry him. Then realizing he had naught to lose since the lass was already set against him, he decided to give honesty a go.

  “The earl dinna want me to.” Damning, but true.

  Her mouth opened, closed, opened. “That’s the reason you married me? To defy your father? Are you jesting?” Her voice had risen with every word, a clear indication that he had erred.

  On reflection, Ash decided that perhaps the unvarnished truth might not always be the best approach where a woman was concerned. Throwing out a smile to cover his retreat, he said, “Well, that and because I thought you were the loveliest lass I’d ever seen in my life and I was determined to have you as my own.”

  “You’re pathetic.”

  “You don’t believe me?” Ash was hard-­pressed to keep his face straight at such a blatant attempt at cajolery. When she smiled back at him, he felt like he’d won a great prize.

  “In truth,” he added in a more serious tone, “he grew weary of waiting for Glynnis to accept Fain McKenzie. And the only other way to expand our hold was to make an alliance with the McRaes who bordered us on the east. It was ever about the lands with the earl. Naught else.”

  “That sounds like a practical match. Why were you opposed?”

  “I wasn’t until I met you.” She gave an unladylike snort that made him laugh again. “But I also have to admit that as far as Mary McRae goes, I’ve seen prettier faces hanging over a paddock fence.”

  “That’s cruel.”

  He shrugged. “Everyone has a right to be ugly, but that poor lass abuses the privilege.” He rocked on his heels, hands still behind his back. “Now I would like for you to be honest with me and answer the question I posed. Why will you not go to Scotland with me?”

  She dinna answer straightaway, and he hoped she wasn’t picking her words and would answer him true. He needed to know now if he could fix this or if he should cast aside all hope and petition for a divorce.

  In his tent, Satterwhite snorted and snored. Beside the fire, Tricks twitched in his dreams, rousing his wee friend to a sigh and a tighter curl against his side.

  “You hurt me.” Her accusation carried a quiet dignity that cut deeper than a blade. “And I don’t want to be hurt again.” She shrugged. “But your indifference was not the only reason I left.”

  Indifference? Never that. In fact, so much the opposite, it had scared him. “I sent you letters,” he reminded her. “And I came to visit.”

  “Yes, you did. You wrote exactly two times and dropped by once on your way back from Newmarket after purchasing remounts.”

  Actually, he had defied orders to come see her as soon as the sale was completed. And after he’d forced himself to leave her the next afternoon, he’d had to ride through the night to get back to the ship before it sailed. Again, he’d risked everything—­and again, all she saw was that it wasn’t enough. “I’m sorry, lass. I would have come more often had I been able.”

  She made a dismissive motion, then let her hand fall back to her lap. “That aside, I have made a new life here. A fulfilling, happy life—­peopled with dear friends and challenged by interesting, meaningful work to which I am totally committed.”

  Looking down into her upturned face, he saw the fire and passion that at one time had been directed at him, and he realized with sudden clarity that by armoring himself against this woman, he had lost something valuable and irreplaceable. Something he never even knew was within his grasp until it had already slipped through his grip. “Your tintypes.”

  “Precisely. There is a man in London who, even now, is clamoring for more of them.”

  Ash nodded. “Chesterfield, at The Illustrated London News. I spoke with him. In fact, it was through him that I tracked you here.”

  “I’ll have to remember to thank him,” she muttered.

  “I would have found you without his help. Remember, I was a forward rider with the Riflemen in my early career.” He smiled down at her. “Chesterfield showed me some of your photographs. You’re verra good, lass. Your spirit shines through in every picture.”

  She looked away. “Mr. Chesterfield has been most encouraging.”

  “As well he should. He sells a lot of newspapers because of you.”

  He watched her stroke imaginary dust from her skirt—­a gesture he was beginning to recognize as one she used when she was nervous or feeling shy—­and sensed his words had pleased her. Which pleased him.

  So he expounded. “In fact, all London is talking about the talented A. M. Wallace.”

  “All?” A smile teased her lips. “Even the children and illiterate? How remarkable.”

  Tipping his head, he studied her face in the fire glow, willing her to look up at him. When she did, he asked, “Why don’t you put your full name on your work, Maddie, instead of just your initials? Are you ashamed of your talent?”

  She shrugged. “If subscribers thought I was a man, I would have a greater chance of success. There are less than a handful of female photographers, and their work is rarely taken seriously because of their gender. Also”—­she sent him a pointed look—­“I thought it
would make me more difficult to track.”

  He grinned. “And so it did. I had to use all my persuasive powers to convince Chesterfield to tell me where you were.” Along with the threat of Newgate Prison for abetting the desertion of the lawful wife of a peer.

  “Ah. I thought so. ‘Tall, overbearing, and unpleasant.’ That’s how he described the man seeking information about me. Who else could it have been but you?” Her teasing smile took some of the sting out of the words. “I just don’t know why you went to the bother of finding me.”

  He looked at the ring he’d given her that she still wore, and wondered again if she might still harbor feelings for him. “You’re my wife.”

  “So it’s all about possession, then?”

  He grinned. “Not all.”

  She opened her mouth—­to berate him, no doubt—­when a rustling sound in the brush drew her attention.

  Ash turned and studied the trees. Beside him, Tricks lifted his head and stared fixedly toward the creek, his nose quivering as he drew in scent.

  Moving without haste, Ash picked up his Snider-­Enfield, which he’d loaded and left propped against the stack of firewood. Holding it by his side, he scanned the trees that ringed the meadow.

  He saw nothing. Heard nothing. Glancing over at the mules and Lurch, barely visible at the edge of the firelight, he noted they stood quietly, ears relaxed, heads drooping as they dozed. After a moment, the wolfhound lost interest, and with a wide, tongue-­curling yawn, dropped his head back onto his paws.

  Reassured, Ash rested the rifle back against the wood and straightened to find his wife watching him. “It’s naught, lass. You’re safe. Tricks and I will watch over you.”

  “I can see that. And I thank you for it.” Tossing off the blanket so that it draped over the slatted back of the chair, she rose and snapped her fingers. “Come, Agnes. Let us leave our guardians to their duty.”

  The little dog bounded up, stretched, gave Ash’s boots a sniff, then trotted ahead of her master toward the wagon. Tricks continued to sleep.