Bonds, Parris Afton (2 page)

Anne's smile was rueful. "That sounds like a
highly improper offer toward a married woman, Colin Donovan."

"I promised Delila I would not hurt you. And I
meant it. I will keep my word now and leave you ...after I have obtained a room
for you and Delila."

At the foot of the inn's stairs he kissed the back
of her hand and Anne realized that Otto had never done that. How could she have
been so foolish as to marry Otto on a whim―why could she not have waited?
Somehow―somewhere Colin's path would surely have crossed hers. But not
this way!

Reluctantly Colin relinquished her hand. "Arranging
for you to go to your husband will be one of the most difficult things I have
ever had to do."

For me also, Anne thought. But she said, "I
won't be forgetting your kindness, Colin."

"I am in effect stranded here," Anne told
the pompous-looking man who sat across from her behind the pine-paneled desk.
"It is imperative I join my husband in Adelsolms."

With a ring-laden hand Green fingered his Vandyke
beard. "I see, my dear. But I don't know what I can do to help you."

Colin came around from behind Anne's chair.
"But I think you can, General Green. I understand there are two scouts with
the Texas militia in Velasco at the moment. Could you not arrange for them to
take Mrs. Maren to Adelsolms?"

Green grunted with disgust. ''They work for Sam
Houston."

Colin leaned both hands on Green's desk, fixing the
man with an implacable gaze. "Then perhaps you could impress upon them the
importance of her request. Surely President Houston would not mind one of his
men's aiding a future citizen of the Republic."

The general ran his hand through his Napoleonstyled
hair.

Then he smiled for the first time. "Maybe you have
something there, Sir Donovan."

Now Anne understood why Colin was a diplomat. On the
way over to the dilapidated cabin that served as the general's headquarters, Colin
had explained to her that Green and Houston were rumored to be political enemies.
Colin was presenting the man with an opportunity to thwart Houston, even if in
a circuitous way. It was no wonder, she thought, that the British Foreign
Secretary, Lord Palmerston, had appointed Colin to serve in Texas. The Irishman
was thorough in his homework.

While they waited for the scouts to be summoned,
Colin questioned the general closely on the affairs of the Republic. "You
see," he said smoothly, "my mission here is to contribute my opinion
as an eyewitness in the Texas Republic to larger deliberations going on in
London."

"And is recognizing the Republic such a
problem?" Anne asked, knowing full well Colin would not divulge much.

"It is like this," Colin explained.
"England's commercial interests are urging immediate recognition of the
Texas Republic. But our government also feels obliged to satisfy the loudly
expressed objections of our English abolitionists."

"Humph!" Green snorted. "We're a
slave-holding nation―and we'll stay one!"

"So I understand," Colin said with a smile
that struck Anne as noncommittal. She wondered if Colin realized that she, too,
was a slaveholder, though Delila would never had considered herself a slave.
Instead the black woman dictated to the rest of Anne's family, as if she were
its matriarch.

There was a knock at the door, and a sloppily
dressed soldier ushered in a tall, lean man whose narrowed eyes seemed at once
to take in everything in the room while revealing nothing. "Brant
Powers," Green said," may I present Mrs. Maren. She is in need of
your services."

Anne's gaze traveled up the drab, buckskin-clad
figure to encounter eyes, paler than the brown molasses of Barbados, regarding
her steadily. There was something lethal about the scout, but she attributed it
to the pistol he wore at his hip and the long knife sheathed at his waistband.

His face was so expressionless that she would have
guessed his age at anywhere from twenty-five to forty. The man's skin was
tanned to the color of leather by the elements. Like the other Texians she had
seen in the previous two days, he wore his saddle-colored hair long so that it
lay in unruly curls at the nape of his neck. But there the man's resemblance to
his countrymen ended.

For in a horizontal stripe across the jutting chin
ran a tattooed line of vermilion.

She shuddered inwardly, and, as if the man sensed
her repugnance, the long lips curled in amusement, lending a feral quality to
the craggy features. When he said nothing, she moved restlessly in her chair.
"I need to get to Adelsolms, Mr. Powers. I am hoping that you can help
me."

"Yes," Green said. "I understand you and
Reed are headed for Comanche Territory soon on an errand for Houston. You'd pass
near the Adelsolms settlement, wouldn't you? I'm sure Mrs. Maren would
appreciate your escorting her to Adelsolms."

"Aye, I would," Anne agreed, feeling
uneasy sitting while the scout's rangy frame towered over her.

"Afraid not, ma'am."

"Now just a minute!" Green snapped to his
feet. "Your rudeness won't be―"

"One moment," Colin said. He watched the
scout over the pyramid of his fingertips. "Powers, I cannot see why you
are unable to accommodate Mrs. Maren.    It is important that she join her
husband, and surely a slight delay cannot tax your mission that much."

The scout's stony gaze swept over the occupants of
the room. "The answer is still no."

He turned toward the door, and Green said,
"Your insolence will be reported, Powers."

"You'd best get someone else as escort for the
bridal journey, Green," Brant said, swinging open the door.

"Wait," Colin said. He rose from his
chair. "As I understand it, Powers, you are not an officer in the
regulars."

The scout said nothing.

"And I realize General Green cannot command
you," Colin continued, "but ..." He paused and glanced toward
Green.

Immediately Green picked up Colin's cue and said,
smiling, "I could waylay your mission, Powers―have you thrown in the
calaboose for drunken disorderliness."

There was a hard silence in the room, and Anne did
not dare look at the scout's face until he said, "Ma'am, be ready at
dawn!" She saw the muscle in his jaw flex slightly and knew she had
already made one enemy in her new homeland.

Anne and Colin stepped outside the inn to escape its
reek of smoke, alcohol, and unwashed bodies. The swaying light of the inn's
lantern illuminated the dingy gray of the weathered frame building. For a
moment they remained in the pool of light that starkly revealed the forlorn
desperation in their faces.

"Do you think we escaped your jailer?"
Colin asked with a forced lightness, but his smile warmed her against the cold,
salty sea wind.

"I put Delila to packing our baggage,"
Anne confessed. It would be the last time she would ever see Colin, and she
told herself that a few moments alone with him were little to ask. As if by
mutual consent, they turned their steps toward the sound of the waves that
pounded the sandy beach, careful not to touch each other.

For a while they talked of old acquaintances, and
Anne told Colin of the things that had happened in Barbados since he had left.
"Sir John has become impossible," she said with a laugh. "At his
last dinner party he had an aide announce he was confined to bed with a fever,
then he appeared moments later masqueraded as a French sea captain, asking the
guests their opinion of Barbados' governor. You can well imagine the guests'
surprise when Sir John revealed himself."

Colin chuckled. "Sir John was always a rascal. The
last time I attended a dinner party given by your godfather, the ..." he
broke off, as his gaze took in the lovely contours of Anne's upturned face, the
sensuous curve of her lower lip, and the seductive innocence in the forthright
gaze. Why had he not perceived that the ungainly child with the thin face and
extraordinarily large, smoky-gray eyes would emerge into such an enchanting
creature?

Against his better judgment his arms slipped around
her waist. "What a bloody fool I was," he murmured in her ear.
"Not to have seen―" But the sentence went unfinished as his
lips claimed hers.

Though Anne was almost twenty years old, had had
many suitors, and was now a married woman, it was nevertheless her first kiss,
and she was shocked by the wonder of it. Her knees were like cotton, and she
found her arms slipping about Colin's neck for support. Then, as the warmth of his
kiss drove away the weather's chill, an infinitesimal spark flared somewhere in
the hidden recesses of her mind. With a gasp she pulled away, her fingers
flying to her lips.

"Anne, don't go to Adelsolms!"

Anne knew if she remained on the bench a second
longer with Colin all her high intentions would dissolve before his bewitching
charm. "Why now, Colin?" she cried and, backing away from his
outstretched hands, turned and ran the little distance to the safety of the inn.
Her kid slippers bogged down in the sand with each step, so that on reaching
the unexpectedly firmer ground before the inn she lost her footing and would
have fallen on her face had not a pair of arms caught her.

She looked up into the taciturn face of the scout.
Had he seen her kissing Colin so brazenly? It did not matter. What did matter
was that she leave Velasco immediately. She had to place distance between herself
and Colin, to get to Adelsolms and restore her life to its proper perspective.

"Mr. Powers," She clung to his arm as if it
were a life buoy.

"Ma'am?" The dark face was expressionless.
The eyes, almost lost in the forest of lashes, regarded her fixedly, and Anne
stumbled on, unsure before a man for the first time since she had developed the
physical attributes of a woman.

"I'm sorry about this afternoon―at
General Green's office. It's just that ..." Confused, she released the
leather-fringed sleeve. She had spoken impetuously. But there was nothing else
to do but continue. "You wouldn't have to take us all the way to Adelsolms.
Just help us catch up with the wagon train that left four days ago. By us I
mean myself, of course, and Delila, my maidservant." Finished at last, she
looked up to find the fathomless eyes as impassive as ever.

"Just one time you fall behind, ma'am―and
I'll leave you there." He clapped a brown, weatherbeaten sombrero low
over his eyes and turned to leave.

"Wait, Mr. Powers!"

He paused and half turned. This time impatience furrowed
a ridge at the bridge of the hawklike nose.

Anne strove to curb her own impatience. "If it
is money you want, I would be most willing to reimburse you for your trouble.
Not the Texian bank note, of course, but Spanish gold pieces―or the
United States silver dollar, if you wish." It would be the last of the
money her mother had pressed upon her before she had sailed, but if the money
would better assure her safe arrival at Adelsolms it would be worth it.

However, when she looked up into the craggy face, it
seemed to her that a look of disgust flashed in the scout's acorn-colored eyes.
But it had come and gone so quickly she was not sure that she had not imagined
it.

Then, unexpectedly, a slow smile that displayed
slightly uneven white teeth changed the expression of the man's normally stony
countenance. The half-closed eyes roamed from Anne's beseeching gaze, past the
wide mouth, down the smooth neck, to come to rest at the twin rising mounds
that heaved beneath her cloak. A blush crept over her creamy, finely textured
skin that every woman in Barbados went to such trouble to protect from the
tropical sun. Involuntarily Anne's hand rose to the frog fastenings of her
cloak.

"I don't barter with money, Mrs. Maren. Few do.
Out here money's useless. You would have to make it worth my while."

At first his allusion did not dawn on Anne. Then
incredulity took hold. "Why, you're insufferable."

The smile flashed once more. "Yes, ma'am. Good
night." He stepped back and moved past her just as the inn's door swung
open.

Delila' large form blocked the yellow light that spilled
through the doorway. "Where's you bin, Miz Anne? What's you bin doing? You
know you're not suppose to―"

"I've been learning about Texas's
wildlife!" Anne snapped.

An ashen sun rose above Velasco's low, sandy beach
to give dim light to the four mounts and the lean pack mule that was burdened with
Anne and Delila's baggage. As the party picked its way over the flat, shrubless
prairie that stretched beyond Velasco into the jungle wilderness of the interior,
huge flocks of water and marsh birds cawed raucously. As though, Anne thought,
to warn her against the journey.

She could still visualize how Brant Power's hard
eyes had passed over her in the dawn's gray light, his keen gaze seeming to
take in everything at once―from her frivolously plumed hat to her
ridiculously dainty boots―before lingering contemptuously on her burgundy
riding habit and matching rose blouse of thin silk.

What had been worse was the way he had flatly
ignored her as she paused beside her horse, accustomed to a gentleman's
assistance in mounting the sidesaddle. It had been his middle-aged partner,
Ezra Reed, who had lumbered over to aid her. "We ain't used to having
ladies ride with us, Miss," he explained, offering her a hand the size of
a shovel in which to put her foot.

"Thank you, Mr. Reed."

"Ezra," he said. He opened his brush
jacket, revealing a red woolen shirt held together by locust thorns, and
withdrew a tattered Bible. "My maw said Ezra was the easiest book of the
Bible to spell." He grinned sheepishly. '''Cept for the
Book of Ruth
.
Never did git around to reading my maw's book, but one―"

Brant's rough "Move out," put an end to
the conversation, and Anne was forced to drop into line behind her unwilling
guide, who looked prepared for trouble with the bullet bag suspended from his
neck and a Plains caplock rifle protruding from his saddle boot.

More accustomed to horses than she was to
needlepoint, to her mother's disappointment, Anne could not help but admire the
way he controlled the lively, prancing piece of horseflesh that he rode―a
rangy sorrel gelding with a good roomy chest, open flanks, and wide nostrils.
For her he had chosen a deep-chested, dapple gray gelding which Ezra told her
had plenty of Kentucky breeding.

Behind Anne rode Delila, mounted on a Spanish mule
that was built as solidly as the black woman. "'Dis here animal give me
any trouble," she warned Ezra, who brought up the rear, "ah'll lay it
out as flat as a Sunday pancake!"

Ezra let out a rumble of laughter that began deep in
his barrelchest. "Miss Delila, you remind me of my maw." He doffed
his fur cap to the woman, revealing gray-streaked chestnut curls. "You and
me are gonna get along right nicely."

Delila screwed her round face into one of her
infamous looks she would direct at laggard house slaves. "You just makes
sure we gits to Adelsolms, mister― and den we'll get along all
right."

At first Anne found the raw country interesting. The
tall marsh grass and tangled wildwood and Spanish oaks gray-bearded with moss,
the salt cedars and morass―this was vegetation new to eyes more familiar
with the mahogany, rosewood, and palm trees of the tropics. But as the
landscape gave way to encroaching walls of pines and cordons of willows, she
became restless. Yet Delila seemed to be enjoying herself as she bantered with
the highspirited Ezra.

Though the sun climbed higher, the day grew no
warmer. Near noon a chilling air current Ezra called a "norther" blew
in, and the winter wind poured through Anne's lightweight cloak. Her frame
shook with the cold that chilled to the bone, and her stomach rolled in
protestations of hunger.

"Mr. Powers," she called to the silent
rider ahead of her.

"Ma'am?" he answered, never turning
around.

"Can't we stop? I'm famished ...and
exhausted."

"No, ma'am, we can't."

She waited for an explanation ,but, when none was
offered, she lost all patience. She reined her horse along side the scout's.
"Now just one moment, Mr. Powers. I realize you're a backwoodsman and have
no conception of the way a civilized man behaves. But this is carrying your
trivial vendetta a little too far! I demand you make camp!"

The brown eyes he turned on her froze her through in
a way the wind had failed to do. "I thought you were in a hurry to reach
your husband, Mrs. Maren."

"My husband is none of your business, sir. Your
business is to see that we catch up with the Adelsolms wagon train. Now will
you make camp ,or do I have to report you?"

The long lips lifted in one corner. "Report me?
To the Tonkawas―or the Karankawas? They'd like very much wearing your
hair at their belt. Such a color of red is a rarity in these parts. Or maybe
you'd like to report me to your husband who couldn't be bothered with meeting
his bride on her arrival in Texas."

Infuriated as she was, Anne could still not help but
notice the deliberation in the man's speech and the peculiar spacing between
the words. As if he were recalling the English from memory. She opened her
mouth to make some response that would put the man in his place but clamped her
lips in a tight line.  She, would not give the lout the satisfaction of arguing
with him.

As if he sensed her strategy and wished to provoke
her into another outburst, he said lightly, "Or maybe you could report me
to the civilized Donovan ...though it looks like his work was too important to
leave and come as your escort."

"He had to present his credentials at the
Capitol!" she said and realized he had succeeded in goading her again.
Why, she wondered furiously, did she bother to defend Colin to the savage? She
remembered Colin's note the innkeeper had given her that morning and closed her
eyes, visualizing the fine script that promised he would find a way to see her
again.

But what was the use? There could be no more
improprieties like the night before. They both must be rigidly aware of their
positions. She, the wife of a pastor. He, with the promising career in politics
ahead of him. No scandal must ruin that. Dear God, why now did she have to
finally fall in love? After all the meaningless flirtations of Barbados. Why now,
when she was married? She tried to imagine the fair, freckled Otto stirring up
the same romantic feelings and knew it was hopeless. She would simply have to
put Colin from her mind, to train her thoughts to respond to mundane matters
such as eating and resting and getting warm once more.

But when she turned to address Brant Powers, she
found the dark face closed over. Commanding him obviously had not obtained the
desired results. She hugged her cloak about her.

"Mr. Powers, please. I know I was wrong in forcing
you to take us with you. But I had no other choice. Don't tell me you've never
done the same ...taking the only opportunity available―regardless of what
obstacles blocked your way."

Was there a spark in the depths of those
dispassionate, lazy-lidded eyes that continuously swept the countryside in
anything but a lazy manner? "I'm not trying to be an obstinate jackass,
Mrs. Maren. We're still in Kronk territory. They're flesh-eaters, ma'am. And I
don't aim to be their next meal. We'll travel 'til we reach Brazoria
tonight."

With the scout having the last word, Anne could only
drop back along the narrow trail and watch with growing relief as the wintry
sun reached its zenith and began its slow descent. Occasionally there were the
glimpses of the swift, russet waters of the Brazos River, paralleling the
party's northwestern course, to break the monotony of the enclosing forest.
Nearly two long, boring hours had passed when Brant, a frown deepening the sun
wrinkles at the outer corners of his eyes, dropped back along side of Anne.

"Wait here," he warned. His voice, though
a low whisper, was, she realized, suddenly the only sound in the forest. When
had the bird calls and the other noises of the forest animals ceased? She
watched with tingling apprehension as Brant and Ezra conversed in quiet tones.
The two men dismounted and, squatting on their haunches, seemed to be studying
a tangled growth of vines that appeared in no way unusual to her. They rose then
and, moving in separate directions, disappeared into a fifteen-foot wall of
cane break.

Impatiently Anne waited beside Delila. Their mounts
moved restlessly as if sensing something the two women could not. "Some'n
out there up to no good," Delila muttered.

"Fiddlesticks!" Anne said. "Those two
are tired of riding and have gone to relieve themselves. Which is exactly what
I intend to do."

Anne proceeded to dismount, and Delila, hampered by
her balking mule, could only call, "Miz Anne, you come back here! Right
'dis minute!"

Anne ignored her and, leaving the trail, carefully
raised her skirts as she picked her way over the damp, spongy earth, moving
toward the faint sound of running water. But the trees grew denser and the
underbrush thicker. Finally forced to halt within sight of a muddy bayou of the
Brazos, she lifted her voluminous petticoats and strove to lower the lacy
pantalettes, trying unsuccessfully not to soil her fine undergarments in the
black land bog. It was then she heard the swishing noise and saw the dull olive
form plodding through the mud of the bayou's banks.

Its hibernation disturbed, the ten-foot alligator
wallowed toward the spot where Anne stood rooted. Beneath the broad snout the
reptile's teeth were bared in a bellow. Slowly Anne backed away before turning
to run. But she tripped over the encumbering pantalettes about her ankles and
went flying headlong into the mossy bog. She screamed then, only to have it cut
off abruptly as the breath was knocked from her.

"No―help! Help!" she cried, struggling
frantically beneath the overpowering weight.

"Will you shut up!" Brant's voice hissed
at her ear. "Do you want to bring every Kronk in the area down on
us?"

"An alligator," she gasped.
"There!"

His hand clamped roughly over her mouth. "Damn
it, lady, will you keep quiet!" When her body ceased its fighting, he
said, "The 'gators rarely attack humans. Besides, it's gone now." He
released her mouth, and she drew deeply on the pine-scented air, filling her
lungs with its sweetness.

And at that moment she became aware that her skirts
were above her waist, aware of the insistent pressure of his loins against her
bare buttocks. The weight of a man. It was a new sensation. And she lay there
paralyzed with fear and something else, half wondering why she did not try to
move. In that fraction of a second she could identify the scent of the pines
and the moss―and the scent of the scout. The clean odor of leather and
woodsmoke―and the fresh scent of ...man. So different from one of the
dandies of Bridgetown who had always smothered themselves with the cloying lilac
water to stifle the smell of unwashed bodies.

Brant rolled her over roughly so that his body half
pinioned hers. She watched his face, the way his jaws clenched and the long
mouth tightened, as his hand impatiently brushed away the mud from her cheeks
and mouth. The touch of his fingertips at her lips caused her breath to cut
short. The hot coffee-colored eyes met hers and seemed to look through her.
"Never―never disobey an order I give," he said harshly.

She nodded, incapable of speech. Her entire attention
centered on the scarlet line that branded the granite-cut chin. Would he demand
the threatened payment for his services now?

But to her relief he rose from her and retrieved his
sombrero from where it had fallen in the underbrush. When he turned back to her
his eyes were cold and hard as they raked over her near nudity. "Get your
clothes on!"

With that he spun around and stalked off, leaving
Anne to contend with her muddied, disarrayed clothing. Her knees trembled and
her breath came in gasps, as if she had run a race. Dear God! She covered her
face with hands that shook, trying to get control of herself.

Somehow she made her way back to the trail to find
the three of them waiting for her. Concern showed in Ezra's blue gray eyes, and
Delila exclaimed, "Miz Anne! Is you all right, baby?"

Anne shot Brant a venomous glare. "Only frightened
by a disgusting animal!" Silently she mounted her horse, this time
unassisted. The remainder of the day her thoughts seethed with her dislike for
the man, for his crudeness and his arrogance. But most of all she detested him for
awakening in herself base, vulgar feelings. Feelings which were as far apart
from the romantic ones she had of Colin as the two men themselves were in
personalities.

At last the early onset of the winter evening
brought an end to the day's journey. Purple clouds streaked the sky as the
party came upon a cleared expanse of lowland dotted with fifteen to twenty huts
that constituted the town of Brazoria.

Before the largest log cabin, a dog-run type with
the main room and kitchen separated from the bedroom by an open hall, a young
woman of perhaps eighteen years fed scraps from a wooden pail to the scrawny
chickens pecking in the dirt about her. She wore heavy men's boots and a thin
dress of cheap calico beneath a ragged leather coat too large for her. When she
looked up and recognized the lead rider, her narrow face took on a glow that
made her almost pretty.

"Brant!" she cried and started toward him,
only to halt as her gaze swept past him to fall on Anne.