Deep as the Rivers (Santa Fe Trilogy) (9 page)

   
Olivia looked up, aware of a subtle shift in his tone. “I miss
Maman
and
Péré
terribly, but if you mean France...” She shrugged. “The Terror began when I was only a babe. I remember little about any of it and care less. We traveled from country to country throughout my childhood. ‘Twas a marvelous adventure but as I grew older I longed for a real home.”

   
“And is this home—St. Louis, a raw frontier town inhabited by fur traders, Creoles and Spaniards, surrounded by Indians?”

   
She could hear the doubt in his voice, see it in his faintly cynical expression. “I like St. Louis well enough. Someday it will be a great city and all the Louisiana country will become part of the United States.”

   
“You sound just like my sister,” he said, suddenly struck by the insight. In spite of their different coloring and backgrounds, Olivia reminded him of Liza.

   
“She is most beautiful. I confess I was taken with a fit of jealousy when I first saw you with her.”

   
He raised one eyebrow sardonically. “Were you now?”

   
She blushed again. “For some reason my mouth overuns my brain when I’m around you. A most singular occurrence. It seldom afflicts me otherwise.”

   
“I, too, must confess a certain...impulsive train of thought when I’m with you.” He stared into wide green eyes, as dark and fathomless as the waters of the Florida glades. Just as mysterious. And just as dangerous.

   
Olivia stared up at his harshly beautiful face, wondering what went on behind those piercing eyes, now storm tossed to a steely gray. Just then the music stopped. They stood facing each other, still touching, oblivious of those around them quitting the floor. “You sound as if you are angry with me because of this...impulse, yet it is you who have come a thousand miles to my city.”

   
“Point well taken,” Samuel replied, shaking his head ruefully to break the spell. He offered her his arm and they strolled through the crowd.

   
“Why are you here? I do not think it is because you have followed my siren call through the wilderness,” she added dryly. The question seemed all too natural to Olivia. She waited, wondering if he would answer since he had been so evasive about himself until now.

   
“Cat’s eyes and cat’s curiosity. Careful, puss, lest it get you in trouble, too,” he said, ushering her through a door which opened onto Madame Chouteau’s gardens.

   
“Am I in danger then?” she asked as they walked into the soft gold light cast from lanterns suspended overhead in the trees growing around the side of the mansion.

   
“In more ways than one,” he murmured, feeling the cool silkiness of her skin where his hand pressed lightly against her back. The delicate fragrance of redbud and daffodils scented the night air combined with the pungent moisture of fog that drifted up from the river after dusk. Yet he smelled nothing but the perfume in her hair and wanted nothing more than to spill its fiery splendor around her bare shoulders and bury his face in it.

   
The terrace was sparsely populated by strollers since the early spring evening had begun to turn cool. Then, too, proper young ladies did not wander unattended into the darkness with their dance partners. Olivia was acutely aware of the man walking beside her who guided her with the lightest touch as if she were his creature, utterly malleable, eager to do his bidding. That incredible and troubling kiss in the deserted Virginia cabin had haunted her dreams. She could still feel the heat and hardness of his body, taste his mouth, smell the male scent of him, as if he had marked her for all time with just that one brief encounter.

   
“I should not be out here with you,” she finally said as the glow of lantern light faded and only the sliver of a new moon cast its silvery light on them.

   
“No, you probably should not,” Samuel said, guiding her farther away from the house into the cool isolation of the yard. A large stone wall, ten feet high, surrounded the grounds. When they could go no farther, he stopped, uncertain of what he would do next.

   
Olivia stood surrounded by shrubbery, her head and shoulders dappled by the shadows of a redbud tree which had just begun to blossom. She faced him and did not move. A slight tremor shook her slender figure as a breeze arose, but she did not tremble from the cold. A dark pervasive heat infused her being.

   
Samuel saw the tiny shudder, heard the soft expectant catch of her breath and he was lost. Uttering an oath he gathered her into his arms, pulling her against him as he stepped behind the redbud. When his mouth swooped down to hers, she gave a small incoherent cry and flung her arms around his neck.

   
From the opposite end of the yard a figure stood in deep shadows watching the young couple kiss with such fierce ardor. The embrace continued for several moments as Shelby slanted his lips against hers, shifting and deepening his caresses while Olivia molded herself to him, clinging and whimpering in acquiescence.

   
When Shelby backed against the cold stone wall, he seemed to regain his senses and broke off the wildly passionate kiss, holding her at arm’s length, then touching her face tenderly with his hand. They exchanged a few murmured words as she repaired her dishabille. He offered her his arm and escorted her back to the bright lights and music coming from the house.

   
Emory Wescott moved out of the shadows, his cold gray eyes narrowed in calculation. Then a slow smile insinuated itself across his fleshy face.

* * * *

   
Emory and Olivia rode up to the bluffs north of the city as the sun rose in dazzling splendor across the wide expanse of the Missouri River rushing below them. A wide open rolling stretch of grassland had been made into a racetrack where all the citizens of St. Louis congregated, from rough river rats to wealthy businessmen.

   
“Yer awfully quiet this morning, gel. Not feeling quite the thing? Did you drink too much of old Auguste’s French wine last night?” Emory studied her with hooded eyes.

   
“Of course not,” she replied more waspishly than she intended, then softened her voice assuringly, “I sipped only one glass of champagne. Never fear, I shall do fine this morning.”

   
“Only see that you do,” he admonished, squinting ahead at the gathering crowd as he reined in the carriage horses beside a thicket of sumac growing near the side of the road.

   
When the phaeton came to a halt, Olivia seized a small carpetbag from the floor and gracefully climbed down. “The usual place after?” she asked. He nodded peremptorily as he snapped the reins and the vehicle lurched forward. Uncle Emory was really a terrible driver, she thought as she turned toward a narrow path snaking through the dense undergrowth, carefully holding the skirt of her stiff twill morning suit away from the scratchy weeds.

   
As she walked through the undergrowth, Olivia’s mind returned again and again to the preceding night at the Chouteaus’ soiree, or more precisely, to the interlude with Samuel Shelby in the garden. He had kissed her with such savage intensity and yet such sweetness. She had dared to hope that he planned to court her. She had melted into him, lost in that strange new maelstrom of desire to which he had introduced her back in that deserted cabin months ago. Touching her lips with her fingertips she could still feel the passion bruised tingling, remember the heat and the wild beating of her heart—before he crushed it once more by breaking away from her.

   
“This is insane, Olivia,” he had said raggedly, holding her at arm’s length.

   
If not for his support, Olivia knew she would have fallen to the ground and quite ruined her expensive new gown. She could not look at him for a moment, but then he had taken her chin in his palm and raised her face so she had to meet those troubling blue eyes. A blush had stained her cheeks and her heart was still beating like a mad thing.

   
“Once more I must apologize for manhandling you,” he had said ruefully as he gently tucked an errant curl back into place.

   
Anger fueled her boldness. “That’s it, then. Another apology, nothing else?”

   
“What would you have of me, Olivia? We’ve only met twice and both circumstances were only a bit less than scandalous. I’m here on assignment at Fort Bellefontaine and have yet to report to the post commander.”

   
He had seemed uncomfortable at that juncture and his loss of cool control gave her courage. She stepped closer and began to smooth her bodice as she spoke. “And once you begin your duties...what then? Surely the army cannot take twenty-fours a day of your time. The fort is scarcely an hour’s ride from my guardian’s house.”

   
His smile had melted her bones then. “I really don’t know what to make of you, Olivia. You’re like no other woman I’ve ever met.”

   
“At least that is a start. Perhaps you’ll find me full of even more surprises...and I you...” She had let the last sentence hang in the air, a question unanswered, perhaps unanswerable, as they walked sedately back to the house.

   
Would he call on her? In the clear light of day, Olivia realized he had made no promise. She would simply have to wait and see what happened.

   
At the opposite end of the river bluff a lone rider made his way uphill toward the deserted racetrack for a secret rendezvous. Reining in his rangy dun gelding, Stuart Pardee surveyed the open meadow from the cover of a dense patch of scrub oak growing on the hillside. His rawboned hands held the reins loosely as he slouched in the saddle. Tall and gauntly thin, his body gave the impression that its various parts did not fit together as a unified whole, misleading the casual observer to think him clumsy and ineffectual. He was anything but.

   
Pale, colorless eyes, set deep in his pockmarked face, scanned the horizon with predatory efficiency. Running one big hand over his thatch of heavy tan hair, he caught sight of his target. A slow smile slashed his wide mouth revealing a set of large yellow teeth. Pardee kicked the dun into a canter, skirting the edge of the woods, headed toward their usual meeting place.

   
The small black phaeton pulled up in front of the rider. “You racing today?” Emory Wescott inquired, noting the light saddle on Pardee’s mount.

   
“Thought I might try my luck. The track’ll be slow from last night’s rain,” Pardee replied in the heavy Yorkshire accent he had never lost in spite of emigrating to Canada at the tender age of fourteen. He leaned forward resting his forearm across the saddle horn and spit a wad of blackened tobacco juice near one polished carriage wheel. “The whiskey here yet?”

   
“It takes a while. Smuggling sixty barrels up the Mississippi without attracting notice isn’t easy,” Wescott replied tightly.

   
“Thought the bloke had a hidden compartment in the bottom of his keelboat,” Pardee said.

   
Although the morning air was clear and cool, Wescott felt a fine beading of perspiration forming on his forehead. “There are such matters as bad weather, changing channels in the river, hostile Southern tribes, all manner of things to cause delay.”

   
“Hell with your bloody delays. I need that shipment before I head upriver. The Osage will be breaking winter camp in a few weeks. It’s easier to deal with them before they scatter to the west for the spring hunt.”

   
“You might easier convince the young malcontents to ally with the British once they are out of the villages and away from the old men.”

   
“You don’t know a bloody thing about savages, Wescott. They don’t work that way. I plan to speak before their tribal elders and the two great chiefs. If I can win them over, it’ll mean more than five thousand Big and Little Osage breaking their treaty with the Americans and joining His Majesty’s government.”

   
“There’s another matter you’d better consider as well. My contacts in the capital advise me a presidential agent from Washington just arrived in St. Louis.” Wescott watched with self-importance as the arrogant Englishman digested that unsettling bit of information.

   
“Who is he?”

   
“Name’s Shelby. A colonel in the army, ostensibly assigned to the Bellefontaine Cantonment. His real mission is to find you.”

   
Pardee’s pale eyes flashed with scornful amusement. “And you, I dare say. It’ll be easy enough to kill him,” he added, enjoying watching Wescott’ s face redden.

   
“No.” The flat pronouncement surprised the Englishman. Pleased to have his undivided attention, Wescott elaborated. “Shelby will be a deal more useful to us alive...if we can learn what he is about and keep one step ahead of him and those bungling Republicans in Madison’s administration.”

   
“How are you going to accomplish that?”

   
Pardee’s interest was piqued and Wescott relished the sense of power it gave him. Smiling in satisfaction, he replied, “I have my plans, Stuart, I have my plans, never you fear. Only remember that I have served your king quite effectively and will continue to do so after the war comes. I am on Britain’s side.”