Colorado Dawn (10 page)

Sighing, Maddie dropped her head into her hands. The man was her weakness. He had been so from the moment she had seen him riding past in his bright blue uniform six years ago. Even after their long separation, being near him again had aroused all those needs and wants and urges that had sent her flying into his arms in the first place.

Lifting her head, Maddie wiped her palms down her apron and reminded herself this was not some grand, romantic reunion. Her husband hadn’t come all this way seeking
her
, but rather the woman he expected to bear his heirs. And when she had fulfilled that duty—
if
she could even do so, after last time—he would abandon her like a bad habit, just as he had before.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, as if somehow she could reach through the layers of cloth and flesh and bone to the empty womb resting within and soothe that dull ache of loss that never seemed to go away.

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 stretched 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.”