Daughter of the Sword (19 page)

“I do wish you wouldn't ask him to our house,” Deborah said as Josiah started the horses.

“I'm sure your mother feels that with his brother gone, he needs to feel at home somewhere,” Father said, casting her a surprised, slightly reproving look. Leticia was watching her, too. Without revealing the way Rolf had treated her the day they met, Deborah couldn't object further, so she bit the inside of her lip and wondered, with a mixture of dismay and half-guilty anticipation, if Rolf was going to be a frequent visitor.

At least with her parents and Thos around, Rolf couldn't say or do much.

But he could look.

While he listened attentively and in apparent agreement to what Leticia and Josiah had to say about the coming vote on whether or not to accept the Lecompton constitution, while he talked with them about English politics and his impressions of the United States, often, when no one else could notice, his eyes rested on Deborah, the flame within them touching off a smouldering restlessness that had nothing to do with her distrust of him or her love for Dane.

She must never be alone with Rolf. That much was sure. Meanwhile, his visits broke the sameness of the days. It was flattering to be tacitly courted by the handsome, rich young English aristocrat who had all feminine Lawrence in a flutter, and if Dane
would
go off and leave his brother, he could hardly expect the Whitlaws to forbid him the house.

Rolf exerted himself to mesmerize Thos, letting him use his rifle and the Colt revolver he had, interestingly, bought in London.

“Your Mr. Colt had opened a factory in Britain and wanted to exhibit his pistol at the Great Exhibition, or World's Fair, of 1851, when under Prince Albert's patronage a fantastic array of inventions, wonders, and follies were displayed at Hyde Park. British gun-makers were afraid of Colt's mass production, but Robert Adams accepted Colt's challenge and the two showed off their guns.”

“I remember something about that,” mused Father. “The results were never formally announced, were they?”

Rolf shook his head. “Though Colt made an excellent showing, Adams put out the story that the Colt misfired ten times while his own revolver, which cocked and fired each time the trigger was pulled, instead of needing to be thumb-cocked like the Colt, didn't, according to him, misfire once.”

“Did it?” asked Thos eagerly.

“You don't expect me to accuse a fellow countryman,” chuckled Rolf. “But Sam Colt was clever. He began giving his Colts to men of influence—Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales—and before long his pistols were being used in Africa against the Kaffirs. After that, his revolver became so respected that the
Times
said the Light Brigade might have carried their charge at Balaclava if they'd been armed with Colts.”

Thos shook his head, admiring the big weapon with its nine-inch barrel. “So it's not just Texas Rangers and westerners who use these!” he said. “It's a beautiful thing.”

“Not to me, it isn't!”

Deborah spoke sharply. Her twin was growing more restless all the time, bored with farm chores and
The Clarion.
She was terribly afraid that if John Brown or Jim Lane called him for some border exploit, he'd go. Rolf's white teeth flashed as he smiled at her.

“Ah, Miss Deborah, I remember that you admire knives, which can be deadly, too.”

Would he give away the secret of her possession of a Bowie? She said grimly, “Blades are beautiful and can be used for other things. Revolvers are strictly for killing.”

“True enough.” Rolf shrugged. “Though I doubt if many civilized people eat with their Bowie knives like your squaw-man friend. I wonder if he has time now to make a Bowie for me.”

“I doubt it. With all these people rushing for Pike's Peak, he has lots of horses to shoe and wagons to mend.”

“Now you're being diplomatic.” Rolf's eyes were very dark, like heavily tarnished copper. “Chaudoin will never have time to craft me that knife, but I'll have one, anyway.”

Dissolving the tension, Father remarked that countless Bowies had been made in England, and the conversation shifted to trade and the dependence of English mills on Southern cotton, which might conceivably lead Britain to support the South if war came.

“But I don't think we will, sir,” Rolf assured Josiah. “The Crimean War was costly, the Sepoy Mutiny shook the army, and I can't believe that anyone but the cloth manufacturers would favor mixing into your internal affairs.”

“I hope not,” Josiah said. “I certainly hope not. The South has few factories, but if it could get its needed manufactured supplies from England, a war, if it comes, could drag on much longer.”

Covering a yawn, Rolf got to his feet. “I think my country's learned its lesson about transporting troops and maintaining them on your shores! We'll be celebrating that next week, in fact! You'll be my special guests, and I'm counting on Thos and Miss Deborah to come in early and be sure everything's properly arranged.”

“I don't—” began Deborah, but Thos squeezed her arm.

“We'll be glad to,” he said. “May I bring Sara?”

“Bring the blackamoor if you want,” said Rolf. “I'll get a surrey, stop for you, and then we can collect Miss Field.”

The glow on Thos's face kept Deborah from protesting again. He so clearly longed to squire Sara in public, show that she was his sweetheart and that he was proud of her. Not even Rolf could do much with her brother in the same carriage. It was a bit like riding with a muzzled lion, but at least that would be one evening when she wouldn't sigh and cry over Dane and wonder why he'd left her!

Early on the Fourth, Rolf drove up in the livery stable's grandest surrey drawn by a matched pair of chestnuts. Big rosettes of red, white, and blue adorned the top of the equipage, and the horses had multicolored cockades fastened to their reins.

The elder Whitlaws came out to admire the rig. They'd drive directly to town, taking the blackberry pies Judith and Deborah had made yesterday. Thos whistled joyfully. “Sara's going to love this!” he cried. “She didn't much want to come—said this was no celebration for
her
people, but she just has to like this!”

“Do you like it?” Rolf asked softly, helping Deborah up to the leather-cushioned seat.

“Very nice.”

“Careful, the sun might melt your words!”

His jaw corded for a second before he went around to tell Josiah and Leticia that they'd all meet later in town. Thos climbed in back, Rolf gathered up the reins, and they were off past the shocked wheat and the corn that would soon be ready for pulling fodder.

It would be hot later, but the morning breeze was still fresh and swept the grass in undulating shimmers, first pale green, then rosy-russet. The horses trotted briskly, but the surrey was much more comfortable than the Whitlaw buggy, and riding in it, open to air and scenery but shielded by a canopy from the sun, was luxuriously delightful.

Too, Deborah had worn the green dress that brought out the auburn of her hair and deepened the warm amber of her eyes. It even made her sun-browned skin look richly golden, almost the color of Judith's.

It was too bad that Judith couldn't go to the Fourth celebration, but at least she no longer spent Sunday, after church, hiding in the lean-to. Well before Rolf came, she took Chica and rode to Johnny's for the day. Strangers didn't come by the smithy much on Sunday since Johnny said even God needed a day off after working all week, so it was a fairly safe outing.

“Why so pensive?” Rolf's voice was amused. “You were sparkling like champagne when we started, but you've heaved three sighs in as many minutes.”

“I—I'm sorry. I was just thinking.”

“Think about me,” he teased, “or I'll speed up the horses till you'll have to hang on to me to stay in the surrey!”

Deborah laughed in spite of herself. “Father says people don't know what to make of your putting on this celebration.”

“Infernal gall or good sportsmanship?” He grinned, handling the reins with practiced skill. He had large, well-kept hands with blunt fingers. Shocked at the sudden, charged memory of how they'd held her so inexorably within a few minutes of when they'd met, Deborah's blood quickened. She didn't like him, didn't trust him, but—“You can tell your friends it's gall,” he said cheerfully. “I'm a damned poor loser.”

“Then you'd better learn more grace,” she retorted.

“Why? I don't intend to lose.”

“Everyone does sometimes.”

His eyes raked over her, burned her mouth and throat and breasts. “I won't.” In spite of her conviction that she'd never love or yield to him, such determination was unnerving. “How can you say that?”

His dark green gaze flicked her lightly, rousing once again that treacherous, hateful, but potent awareness. “I gamble high for what I want, Miss Deborah. If I stake my life and lose it, I won't know that I've lost—not long enough to matter, anyway.”

“That's how I feel,” said Thos enthusiastically. “If something's worth trying for, it's worth all you have!”

“And it's a form of winning, anyhow,” mused Rolf, abruptly thoughtful, “to throw oneself completely into risk. I'd rather do that than figure odds, collect my careful winnings, and live a hundred years.” He laughed back at Thos. “There'll be a turkey shoot today. Want to use my Sharps?”

“Oh, can I?” cried Thos.

Deborah scowled. “You're not really going to shoot at the turkeys?” For sometimes in the popular shooting matches, this was done, and the winner had to at least draw blood.

“I knew you wouldn't like that,” Rolf said. “No, there'll be a target. The other hunters and I have brought in enough buffalo meat and venison to feed the Territory, but there'll be barbecued oxen and pigs, too.” He chuckled. “I think my biggest triumph was in persuading your rather puritanical city fathers that a ball wouldn't ruin anyone who wasn't! Your father helped there!”

Deborah nodded, remembering a few vigorous dinnertime discussions. Mother didn't approve of dancing, mostly because of the drinking and fighting that often went with such galas, but Father had placated her by pointing out that the ball would be exceedingly well chaperoned, at least several respectable married ladies for every single girl, and liquor wouldn't be sold on the premises or anyplace where the ladies' Temperance Vigilance Committee had a say.

Deborah had never been to a dance, and her mother's grudging acceptance of this one didn't make much difference. Since she couldn't dance, she'd help with tending babies for young matrons who
could,
and with serving the food.

“I've got the best fiddlers in the Territory,” Rolf boasted. “They're set to start with four strings and wind up with two, and Jem Tucker can even saw out a waltz!”

“A waltz!” breathed Deborah. It sounded deliciously wicked, conjuring up bare-shouldered jeweled beauties whirling seductively in the arms of uniformed hussars or noblemen in Paris and Vienna and London.

“And you shall dance it with me,” Rolf promised.

Deborah shook her head. “I can't dance at all—and certainly not that!”

“If you can't dance, you might as well start with the waltz.” He laughed.

“But—it's scandalous!”

He threw back his head and roared. Sobering, he eyed her with indulgent wonder. “That's what dowagers said when it was brought to England in 1791. But no one would dare accuse Queen Victoria of license, and it's probably been the leading dance ever since the Regency period! Would I lie to you?”

“Yes!”

“Sara and I'll dance it,” Thos predicted. “Come on, 'Borah, don't be starchy!”

She would've danced with Dane—oh, so gladly! To be close in his arms, swirling to music in the air and the slower, deeper, steadily increasing tempo of their blood … But he was halfway to Santa Fe by now. It would be months, if ever, before they danced, and why?

He hadn't needed to go off like that, proposing one day and leaving the next, giving her no time to be his acknowledged love, to savor the sweetness. Not a bit of it! When she wouldn't give up her principles, he'd been gone as soon as he could manage it, and no doubt when and if he came back next spring, she'd be treated to more of the same—an imperative question followed by abrupt departure when she gave the answer she'd almost surely have to give.

Why couldn't he have stayed at least a little while? Why couldn't they have had some time of loving, even if they couldn't agree, even if it came to parting in the end?

In her heart she knew, with a thrill of female power, the answer to that. He didn't trust himself not to take her, and if he did, with his stubborn honor, he'd feel he had to marry her. For a moment, gripped by a rush of savage sweetness, she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the memory of his hard, tender mouth and caressing hands.

Rolf's voice invaded her yearning. “Have you left the earth, Deborah? You can't escape me that way, you know! When you look so dreamy, I want to wake you up.”

“I'm awake.” Straightening, she saw the ribbon of trees along the Kaw, the buildings around the smithy. Frustrated longing was oppressive within her, a heaviness she felt she must throw off or be crushed by.
Dane, Dane, why did you leave me?

Lifting her chin, she said, “I'll dance the waltz!”

ix

Lawrence was teeming with several times its normal population as Rolf drew up by the imposing three-storied Free State Hotel on Massachusetts Street. A boy ran to hold the team and Rolf gave him a coin, coming around to help Deborah down while Thos did the same for Sara.

“Thos, if you'll see to the ladies, I'll drop the surrey at the livery and be back in a hurry,” Rolf said. He bowed over Deborah's hand, gave her a roguish look, and left them to survey the jostling crowd.