Maisy’s attitude cut the other’s optimism to the core as she sneered down her nose, “I hardly care to indulge in such plebeian discourses.”
“Then perhaps we should form a literary circle to discuss the classics. Certainly, a woman of your stature is well read and socially informed.”
Maisy flushed beneath Juliet’s smoothly delivered remark, then muttered, “I’m not much for reading.”
“Perhaps you should make an effort to cultivate other interests, Mrs. Bartholomew. We have only each other, and it would be a shame for you to feel yourself above the need for camaraderie. Pushing to forward your husband’s career is admirable, but I fear you’ll find no household of servants to bully to add to your amusement.” Juliet rose while Maisy sputtered like a scalding kettle. “Pauline, help me carry these plates to the kitchen. I’m sure Colleen could use a hand in there. Grueling tasks are made so much more pleasant when shared by friends.”
Leading a smirking Pauline away from Maisy’s table, Juliet marched into the kitchen with her head held high. Just because she’d allowed the mean-spirited Maisy to choose the field of conflict didn’t mean Juliet was unfamiliar with the game. She could parry snobbery with the best of them.
Because like her father, she played to win.
The air grew thick and redolent with the smoke of fine tobacco. Differences were momentarily set aside in deference to a good draw and exhalation. As they puffed in silence, the group of officers could almost pass as comrades in arms.
Almost.
Noble watched curiously as Crowley bent to pluck several bristles from a broom left propped against the adobe wall. He snapped them into straws of unequal length, then secreted them in his hand. He extended it to Miles.
“Gentlemen, choose.”
Miles picked a straw, then scowled at its shortness. His displeasure deepened as the same opportunity was given to each officer, even the Southerners.
“John, surely you don’t mean to include them.”
“What are we drawing for?” George asked at last, studying his own stubby reed.
“A duty entrusted only to those closest to me,” Crowley answered. “A tradition I’ve maintained for nearly eighteen years, one that requires the utmost honor and discipline from the select few.”
Gazing down at his own long straw, Noble asked, “And exactly what is that privilege?”
Juliet readied for bed, bemused by her father’s good humor. She’d asked him to explain himself, but he only smiled, kissed her brow, and wished her a pleasant good evening. His self-satisfied silence annoyed her, because she sensed his amusement was somehow at her expense.
She felt badly about her behavior toward Maisy. It wasn’t like her to talk meanly to another, even when that one was so deserving of the set down. She knew it was her obligation to further the spirit of good will. But it was hard to extend an olive branch to Maisy Bartholomew when her strongest urge was to use the branch to switch her pampered behind.
Pauline expressed her need for female companionship. Even with a husband and a brood of her own, she longed to reach out to others of her own sex. Juliet had never had many close friends. Jane Howell was the exception, but one didn’t have to work at being friends with Jane. She overwhelmed a body with chatter and good humor. Juliet found such gaiety difficult. More at home with men than with her own gender, she never knew exactly what to say. She could talk about books or gardening, she could complain about the day-to-day running of the post, but the subject she yearned to discuss she didn’t know how to broach.
She wanted to ask someone about what it felt like to be in love.
And that was a subject she felt shy of even around the mild Pauline.
If only her mother hadn’t passed on before imparting the wisdom of one generation to the next …
She was about to blow out the main room light when a soft knock sounded on the door. To her surprise, Noble Banning stood on the porch, his hat in hand, his features grim.
“Major Banning, it’s late,” she chided, drawing her bed gown tighter about her. “My father has already retired.”
“This doesn’t concern him, ma’am. At least not directly.”
In answer to her frown of confusion, he displayed his straw with a flourish and watched her pale.
“I’ve come to escort you to your bath.”
Chapter 9
If he’d suggested scrubbing her back for her, Juliet couldn’t have been more shocked.
“What? You?”
He waved the broom straw under her nose, his amusement galling. “Just my luck. I’ll wait out here while you get—whatever it is you need.”
She slammed the door between them with enough force to knock chinking from the windowsills. Standing in the empty room, her heart a chugging steam engine, Juliet wondered what to do. How could her father have thought such a situation acceptable? She remembered his smothered grin and cursed him low and passionately. She wouldn’t have put it past him to have rigged the draw.
It was Noble, then, that he’d chosen for her to wed, not Miles. The idea was absurd. It was impossible. It was … tempting. As tempting as the image of Noble Banning hip deep in a moonlight-drenched pool.
No. She’d tell him no. There was no way she could go through with it.
But a good soaking bath was one of the frontier’s rarest luxuries. Spirit of ammonia in a washbowl and a dash of rose water only served for so long, then the body itched for leisurely submersion in water that was clean and pure, for milled soap and a headful of hedonistic suds.
That was the one extravagance the colonel allowed her, her and her mother before her. A monthly bath in a nearby stream, under the cover of night, under the watchdog care of one of his most trusted men. He himself couldn’t leave the post, so from the time she was a child, a draw of straws amongst his officers picked an escort who would wait, well armed and ever vigilant so that she could enjoy this single female indulgence.
And now it would be spoiled by a cruel fate that presented Noble with the long straw.
Thinking of the cool water and fragrant soap had her scalp tingling. A vigorous brushing was no substitute for deep-to-the-roots clean.
Why should she allow one arrogant Southerner to ruin her solitary pleasure?
Before she could talk herself out of going, Juliet snatched the blanket from the foot of her bed and gathered up her toiletries in a straw bag. Tugging on boots, she made no effort to change from her nightclothes. Her robe provided ample protection from the brush and from prying eyes, and would give her freedom to sit astride.
She paused to lean inside the door to her father’s bedroom. The absence of his gusty snores told her he was still awake, so she whispered fiercely, “Don’t think you’ve been forgiven,” before leaving the house and placing herself in the care of the chosen honor guard.
The surprising cool of the late evening faded the burn of humiliation from Juliet’s cheeks. It also helped that Noble remained a silent shadow at her side. She wasn’t sure she could endure any pithy comments in regard to their situation while vulnerably in her nightwear.
The stream ran less than a half-mile from the fort, a runoff from the Colorado River and the only source of water within a hundred miles. Daily expeditions from the post brought back a limited supply from the tributary, just enough to quench the thirst of man and beast and to provide scant leftovers for necessary washing. Juliet carried four hide skins behind her saddle. Each day she personally fetched the nectar needed for her garden to flourish and her plants to grow, since there was never enough from the Crowleys’ allotted ration to spare. First she would see to her own revitalizing, then she would attend her greens.
The gurgle of the stream won nickers of anticipation from their horses as they grew near. Juliet’s own eagerness overwhelmed earlier reluctance as she guided her mount through the tangled scrub to the sandy bank of the creek. Noble followed unquestioningly as she continued along the winding edge until she found the spot she sought, a bend where the waters de
epened and slowed on the outer curve, where low mesquite trees afforded protection. Eagerly, she slid off her horse and passed Noble the reins along with a warning glare that she’d brook no nonsense from him.
“I shouldn’t be more than a few minutes. You can wait with the horses over there.” She gestured to the other side of the mesquite thicket. From there he’d have no opportunity to steal a look at her.
“Take your time, Miz Crowley. Enjoy your bath. I’ll keep an eye out for hostiles.”
The fact that he called her the remote “Miss Crowley” instead of the familiar “Juliet” made it easier for her to relax and even offer him a faint smile.
“I doubt you’ll be seeing any hostiles, Major, not this close to our troops. Just make sure that’s all you’re planning to see.” Her brow arched pointedly.
He raised his hand to protest his innocence. “May God strike me blind if I’m lying.”
“I’ll strike you harder than that.”
He grinned down at her. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll keep my eyes on my duty.”
And just for a moment, his gaze canted downward, a slow, thorough caress from head to toe and back, naming her as the duty foremost in his mind. The far from impersonal look made it hard for Juliet to draw a decent breath from the sudden tightening through her chest. She scowled at him.
“Stay over there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Then he added in a satin-smooth aside, “Call if you need anything.”
Like help reaching my back?
Juliet swallowed down her expectations, the gesture dry and as raw as the smolder in his gaze. Then he nudged his mount ahead, hers trailing behind it, and went to his appointed watch.
Determined to dismiss him from mind, as if such a feat were possible, Juliet let the inviting murmur of the current entice her to the water’s edge. After stepping out of her boots, she dipped a toe beneath the glassy surface and gave a delighted shiver. Positively delicious. No more delays. Her robe hanging on a thorny shrub, her blanket folded within an easy stretch, Juliet slipped into the stream.
Paradise.
The sensation of her damp muslin underclothes hugging her skin was next to being naked, wringing a long, low sigh from Juliet as she sank shoulder-deep into the water. With moonlight shining a silvery lavender along the surface and cool eddies swirling about her form beneath it, it took little encouragement for her imagination to suggest the feel of a lover’s hands. Or for her seditious heart to put a name to him.
Noble Banning.
With only the nightbird’s song to disturb her dreams, Juliet let them wander where her practical mind refused to give them license. To the wickedly handsome face and the pale fire of his stare, a stare that on more than one occasion had devoured her whole. To the memory of a broad, hair-matted chest that incited a feverish wondering as to how this diamond-cool water would look glistening upon it. Wondering how it would feel beneath her palms … how it would feel to taste the sinfully shaped mouth that haunted her nights. To be lost in his kisses, to his touch, to his possession …
The sound of her own wayward moan shocked her back to her senses. Grabbing up the precious bar of French milled soap, she began a hurried scrubbing, willing her overly sensitized skin to cease its quivering. However, the scent of lavender rose about her, a cloud of sensory bliss distracting her from her haste. How wanton and wonderful to feel the bar gliding up wet arms, between the valley of her breasts, over the wisps of muslin clinging to her thighs.
Was Noble watching? She let her hair trail back into the water, feeling the heavy pull of it in the current.
Let him look. Let him dream even as she dreamed of what would never—could never—happen.
Noble was dreaming all right.
Had she stripped to the skin before sinking into the stream?
The thought of her nude and buoyant figure cast in pearlescent silhouette beneath the stars goaded him almost beyond restraint. The sound of a woman’s sighs pulled him from frustration to near frenzy. Carbine clutched in sweat-slicked palms, he prowled the underbrush, almost hoping some luckless critter might appear so he’d have cause to vent his tensions.
Did the woman know she was driving him mad?
Were she other than Juliet Crowley, he would have answered an unqualified yes. But there was a sweet naïveté to Juliet, an unassuming honesty that appealed to him as powerfully as her lushly pouting lips. To have both … he could picture no greater heaven.
No darker purgatory.
Such thoughts were torture, nothing more. He couldn’t act upon them even if she invited him to. Which she wouldn’t. Though he’d been receiving enough subtle signals from her to rouse a man from a coma, he suspected she wasn’t taunting him purposefully.
Remember your duty, man. Remember your cause. Remember why you brought your men out to this forsaken land a world away from home and hearth and hope.
It was to find a traitor—not to slake his own desires.
If he forsook his obligations now for personal pleasures, how could he return to Pride County and hold up his head? How could he act as if he were any different from his father?
How could he demand sacrifices from others without making a few of his own?
Pride County was full of women. Any one of them would be glad to take whatever he was willing to give.
But it wasn’t any one of them he wanted here in this lonesome wilderness where seductive sighs beckoned him into abandoning his pride. At the moment, there was little else left him.
Taking a deep, purifying breath and wishing he had one of the colonel’s good cigars, Noble continued his stony pose of sentinel until a sudden shrill cry from behind him brought him crashing toward the stream, heart in his throat.
When he didn’t see Juliet in the placid water, frantic thoughts and a tearing guilt collided in his brain. How had he let something happen to her? Then a fine webbing appeared on the stream’s surface, and Juliet’s head broke through. As she gasped and sputtered, Noble’s knees went wobbly in relief.
“Are you all right?”
At the sight of him standing at the water’s edge, Juliet ducked back down until her chin bobbed on the current.
“W-what are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here!”
“You cried out. I thought you might need—”
“I slipped on a rock. I don’t need … you.”
Her words failed, then faded.
Their gazes fell unbidden to the lips shaping those anxious words, and the moment stretched out beyond discomfort to a strange sort of inevitability. Knowing duty demanded that he withdraw, Noble continued to linger, fascinated by the provocative way Juliet moistened her mouth in uncalculated nervousness.
She was wearing a filmy something or other. Hints of eyelet lace threaded through with delicate pink ribbon showed at her smooth shoulders. The effect was so startlingly feminine on one as practical as Juliet that it hit him low, like a blow to the solar plexus.
Because he couldn’t just stand there sucking wind, he asked, “How’s the water?”
“Wonderful.” A pause, then a husky, “Come in and see for yourself.”
“I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”
Her eyes grew heavy-lidded, her mouth a teasing pucker. “And why is that, Major? Certainly both you and your clothing could use the wash.”
“I’m not disputing that fact. But I’m on duty—”
“Which are you more afraid of, Noble? The Indians or my father?”
He didn’t hesitate. “You.”
Her blue eyes rounded in surprise, then became all sultry invitation once more. “I’m just a simple girl. What does a sophisticated gallant like yourself have to fear from me?”
“Ah, such words as were spoken by Helen of Troy and Delilah.” His gaze followed the movement of the current as it lapped about the curve of her breasts. Oh, to be that unassuming stream …
Her soft laughter played like the rush of water over rough rocks, its low-pitched music undeniably sen
sual. “Are you afraid I’m a danger to your life—or to your manhood?”
“Both.”
That pleased her. “I’ll avert my eyes to preserve your chastity—had you any to protect.” She splashed at him, the spray darkly dappling his pant legs. “Come in. Consider it an order. Or don’t you take orders from women?”
“Those are the ones I enjoy obeying the most.”
A slight frown shaped her lips, then she pushed herself away from the creek bottom to ride the current on her back. The sylphlike movement brought her breasts and sweetly rounded thighs above the surface. Wet muslin did nothing to conceal what it was meant to cover.
The blade of desire twisted low in Noble’s belly. And he considered her offer for one beat, then two.
“Hell.”
It was both oath and prediction. He levered his feet out of his boots. He draped his uniform shirt over them, then, after one last moment of hesitation, he laid his carbine on the bank and waded in. His worry that he’d gone suddenly insane was quickly washed away by the refreshing sluice of the water.
“I told you it was wonderful,” Juliet said as she rolled onto her belly and glided closer. She extended the soap. He took a sniff, then shook his head.
“I’m sure your father likes smelling it on you, but I don’t think the same would apply to me.”
“I don’t think he would mind as much as you think,” was her mysterious reply.
“Your father doesn’t mind you bathing with men?”
“He likes you.” Displeasure tugged at her response, but Noble didn’t notice. His thoughts were elsewhere.
“And he’s said nothing to Miles when he’s returned to the post smelling of lavender?”
Her mood clouded. “Miles never has.”
“I’m certain he wouldn’t object to playing in the water with you.”
“Miles doesn’t play, Major. He takes everything very seriously—too seriously.”
The Men of Pride County: The Rebel Page 10
