Colorado Dawn (6 page)

“He’s deaf. Give him water and unsaddle him, then tie him where he can see me.”

“Mr. Satterwhite is not your flunky.”

“What about the dog?” Ash asked, ignoring the muttered comment.

“I didn’t see any dog.”

“Isn’t that Lurch?” his wife asked, studying the horse as the old man tied him to the side of the wagon. “You brought him from Scotland?”

Surprised that she would remember after so long a time, Ash nodded.

“He wasn’t always deaf, was he?”

“No.” Sensing questions coming that he dinna want to answer, he tried to divert her. “There are things we need to discuss—”

“What happened to him?”

Bollocks.
“He was injured in an explosion.”

“When?”

“Two years ago.”

“Were you with him?”

“Aye.”

“Were you injured?”

“Aye.”

Her cheeks seemed to lose color. “Badly?”

Realizing that he had pressed the heel of his palm against his throbbing temple, he lowered his arm and once more clasped his hands behind his back. “Badly enough to end my military career,” he said curtly, needing no reminders of that senseless, blood-soaked afternoon. “As I was saying, madam, there are things we need to—”

“Ah. Now I understand.” She leveled her gaze at him.

It was disconcertingly direct. That artist’s eye again. Intrusive. As if she saw past all his carefully erected barriers to the doubt and confusion he always felt when she was near. Charging at a full gallop toward a line of armed infantry soldiers made him less nervous than did his own wife.

“Now that you can no longer follow the drum, you have come to me to amuse you. Is that the right of it, Angus?”

“I assure you, madam, at this moment I am anything but amused.” He glowered at her to prove it.

She laughed, apparently unfazed by a look that had caused more than one raw recruit to soil himself. “I wonder, Angus—or Ashby, as you now fashion yourself—why you persist in calling me ‘madam.’ Have you forgotten my name, perchance?”

Another wave of heat rushed up his neck. Of course he remembered her name. But it helped him keep his distance if he dinna speak it aloud.

“You have, haven’t you? How utterly like you.”

Yet he had glimpsed tears in her eyes before she’d looked away, and sensed the hurt behind her brittle smile.
Bluidy hell.
He hadn’t intended to make her cry. He hadn’t intended for this meeting to go so badly. But she addled him, being so different from the woman he had expected to find—all prickly, and outspoken, and…independent. The change unsettled him.

And repelled him.

And in some odd way he dinna understand, it also pulled him closer.

“Of course, I remember your—”

“It’s Madeline,” she cut in, still not looking at him. “Maddie, to my friends. Alexandra Madeline Gresham Wallace.”

“Not anymore. Madam. Madeline.”

She blinked at him, that shadow of hurt still reflected in her eyes. “So you’ve divorced me, after all?”

“Not yet.” He softened that with a smile, not sure if he was joking. “But since the passing of my father and Neil, our status has changed. Donnan is now Earl of Kirkwell, and as his heir, I am now Viscount Ashby.” He punctuated that with a curt bow. “My fellow officers have—had, that is—shortened it to Ash, happy to remind me of the gray in my hair. And you are now Lady Madeline, my viscountess.”

“Your vi-viscountess?”

“My viscountess.”

“But I do not want to be a viscountess, yours or anyone else’s. I am perfectly happy being a tintypist.”

“I’m afraid you have no choice, madam. Madeline.”

“Oh, dear. I never—” Abruptly the air went out of her. Her eyes rounded. A look of terror came over her face as she stared past his shoulder. “Duck!” she screamed just as something slammed into his back and drove him to the ground.

Three

“G
et off me!” Ash yelled over his wife’s shrieks. “Down!” From the corner of his eye, he saw Satterwhite running from the wagon, the rifle at his shoulder. “No! Don’t shoot! It’s my dog! Don’t shoot!”

Finally getting a grip on the wriggling body straddling his chest, he shoved Tricks out of licking range and rolled to his feet. “You boggin’ noob!” he railed, wiping his dusty sleeve over his damp face. “I told you to stay.”

Madeline let the stick of firewood she gripped in both hands drop to the dirt. “Th-that’s a dog?”

“Aye.” He glowered at the animal grinning up at him. “An Irish wolfhound, and he’s but a wee pup, so he has much to learn. You won’t be needing that.” He motioned to the rifle in the old man’s hands.

Satterwhite slowly lowered the rifle. “I’ve ridden smaller burros. The thing must be eight or nine hands high.”

“Aye,” Ash said proudly. “The lad’s big for his age, so he is.”

“B-But he attacked you.” His wife edged back from the panting dog, her brown eyes as round as buttons in her pale face.

“Not my Tricks.” Bending, he brushed dust from his trousers
and inspected his boots for new scratches. “He’s just glad to see me. Fair exuberant about it, so he is, but he means no harm.” He straightened to find both his wife and Satterwhite gaping at him. “What?”

“Does he bite?” the old man asked.

“Not unless I tell him to.”
And Tricks decides to obey
.

Tentatively, his wife reached out a hand.

Ash started to warn her, but the hound was already giving her fingers a thorough sniff, then anointing them with a slobbery kiss.

“Good boy,” she crooned, smoothing back the wiry eyebrows that were almost as high as her waist.

Ash watched, as perplexed by the hound’s affectionate behavior as his wife’s reaction. Few of the gently bred women of his acquaintance would extend a hand to such a ferocious-looking beast, much less smile at his damp show of acceptance. But then, his wife had never been orthodox—not in her emotions, or her photography, or her passions. At one time he had wondered if married women were allowed to be so open in their affections toward their husbands—he had never seen such between his parents, or his brothers and their wives—not that he had complained. In fact, the memory of that ardor had warmed him during many a lonely night.

“Why Tricks?” she asked.

“Because he does tricks.”

“Indeed?”

Trying not to sound boastful, Ash said, “He can bring down a wolf or a boar, or even a stag or horse. And he can rip out a man’s throat on command.” That was conjecture, of course, since it had never happened. But Ash suspected Tricks would do it if the occasion warranted. He ruffled a rough-coated ear. “He’s a braw lad, so he is. Protective and intensely loyal. It’s in their natures.”

“That’s not
tricks
. That’s savagery.”

Ash shrugged. “He’s a war dog. That’s what they do.” Seeing she needed further reassurance, he added, “He can also sit and heel. He’s verra smart.” He lifted a hand. “Tricks, sit!”

The dog flopped on his back and displayed his privates.

“Oh, aye,” she mimicked with a smirk. “The braw lad is verra smart, so he is.” With a dismissive wave of her hand, she turned toward the wagon. “Come, Mr. Satterwhite. Let’s collect what you will need for your rabbit stew this evening.”

Bemused, Ash watched her walk away, squinting through the dwindling haze of his headache at the way the breeze molded her skirt to her rounded arse. “See what I mean, lad?” he said, idly rubbing his temple. “She’s not like other women, who will do anything for a title. She’s unpredictable, so she is, and independent to a fault. A woman with ideas and the backbone to see them through. A potent combination.”

When Tricks dinna respond, he looked down to find the dog staring after his wife, his jaws open in a toothy grin. “Shut your geggie, lad. You look like a drooling gawk. But I agree. We’ll not be giving up on her yet.”

Maddie managed to make it up the steps and into her wagon before her wobbly knees betrayed her.

Angus-the-dog rushed her, yipping and trying to climb her skirts. Dropping down onto her narrow bed, Maddie gathered her pet in her arms and pressed her heated cheek against the fluffy fur.

“He’s here, pup. He’s actually here.”

The dog licked her face, then wiggled out of her arms and went to scratch at the door.

“I can’t let you out, Angus. His great beast will eat you.” She pressed a trembling hand to her brow. “Oh, dear. I’ll have to change your name, won’t I?” Then she remembered that Angus-the-man was now Ash-the-viscount, so what did it matter? She stifled a laugh even as tears burned in her eyes. She didn’t know why she was laughing and crying but couldn’t seem to stop either. She felt giddy. And panicky. And terrified.

My husband is here. Now. Just outside the door.

Or had she dreamed it?

Leaning over, she inched back the curtain over the small window.

Definitely no dream. More like a nightmare. He stood where she had left him, talking to his overgrown dog. From the safety of the shadows, she studied him as she hadn’t dared do when they were face-to-face.

He still cut a fine figure. Tall and lean. His long legs as muscular as she remembered, his shoulders as wide, and his back still ramrod straight.

Insufferable, pompous ass.

She had hoped he’d grown fat and bald and toothless. But other than deeper grooves around his mouth, fine lines fanning out from his remarkable green eyes, that scar across his eyebrow, and the gray in his hair, he was the same man who had haunted her dreams for the last six years. Except that now he was a peer of the realm. Lord Ashby.

The bounder
.

Angus-the-dog whined and sniffed at the narrow gap under the door.

Dropping the curtain, Maddie sat back, wondering what she should do. She had no interest in being a viscountess. Or in returning to Scotland and being dumped in that drafty castle so he could go galloping off to Edinburgh or London on some pursuit that didn’t include her. Over the last two years, she had carved out a life without him—a fulfilling life—a fine, happy life, thank you very much—and she had no intention of giving it up.

She sighed. “He can do it,” she told the dog still whining at the door. “Legally, he can force me to go back with him.” He could even beat her, or lock her in a mental hospital, or take control of her parents’ home and any money she made from her photographs. “So what am I to do?”

The dog stretched up to bat at the door latch.

“I know. I’m his chattel as surely as those two mules out there are mine. And he can make me do anything or live anywhere he wants.”

Unless, of course, she did something to convince him that that would be a poor idea and she was not a suitable wife for a peer.

Hmmm. Now there’s a thought.

Leaning over, she lifted the edge of the curtain again. Now he was talking to Mr. Satterwhite, no doubt ordering the poor old man around like one of his troopers. With a sniff, she let the curtain fall.

“It would have to be something that wouldn’t land me in jail,” she mused aloud. “Something that would bring harm to no one, especially myself, but would be so reprehensible he would gladly put me aside. Any ideas, pup?”

Angus-the-dog squatted and puddled by the door.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” she said, rising to clean the mess. “I’m not that desperate.” Not yet, anyway. But there must be something just as odious she could do to scare him off.

Shadows lengthened as Maddie paced the tiny wagon, chewing her thumbnail, thoughts racing through her head. By the time Mr. Satterwhite knocked on the door to tell her dinner was ready, she had discarded a dozen ideas and had finally decided the whole notion was silly.

But one thing was certain. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—go back to the sterile life she had worked so hard to leave behind.

At a yapping sound, Ash looked up from Satterwhite’s recitation of the merits of the Winchester repeater over his British Snider-Enfield to see his wife peering out of the open door of her wagon with a wiggling ball of fur in her arms.

“Will you please tie up your dog?” she called.

“There’s no need,” he called back.

“You’re certain?”

“Aye.”

Ash studied her as she came down the steps. His headache was almost completely gone now, allowing him to better see and admire the changes in his lady wife. She had lost none of her grace, he noted. She still moved with the regal glide that marked her a lady of
quality—back straight, head high, each step measured. She looked every bit the viscountess he needed her to be—except for the squirming, yapping rat she clutched in her arms.

He stood as she approached.

“You’re sure it will be safe?” She eyed Tricks warily. “I can’t keep my dog locked in the wagon forever. We’ve already suffered one indiscretion.”

“You or the dog?”

He thought he saw a smile before she pinched it off. He had missed that smile and the way it involved her whole face, and how it had made him feel when she’d directed it at him.

After positioning her chair away from the smoke, he held it while she settled, then returned to his seat on the log beside Satterwhite, who was stirring a bubbling pot suspended over the coals. “If I tell Tricks to leave your wee dog alone,” he said, raising his voice over the constant yapping of the rat, “he will obey. As long as I’m not threatened.”

“Like he obeyed your command to sit?”

Satterwhite snickered. Ignoring him, Ash reached down to pat the wolfhound reclining beside his leg, his dark eyes fixed on the rat. “Tricks isna vicious. He will do as ordered.”
Unlike you,
he almost added.

“In case he doesn’t,” Satterwhite offered, one eye looking hopefully toward the wagon, the other aimed at Ash, “want me to get my pistol?”

“Not unless you want me to have it. Come, lass. Put your dog down. I’ll watch Tricks until they’re acquainted.”

Hesitantly, she lifted the dog from her lap.

Ash felt the wolfhound tense under his hand and murmured softly in Gaelic until the dog relaxed.

As soon as the rat touched dirt, it charged.

Madeline leaped from her chair.

“Wooee!” Satterwhite hollered, lifting his scuffed boots out of the raging mite’s path.