Merline Lovelace (2 page)
Authors: Countess In Buckskin
“You didn’t ask. And I’m not of the English. I’m American.” He tipped two fingers to his hat brim. “Josiah Jones, ma’am. Out of Kentucky, by way of Missouri.”
“Ahh. You are Amer-i-kan.”
The slow, drawn-out syllables carried a wealth of unspoken meaning. Her gaze flicked over him once more, as if she now understood the reason for his disreputable appearance. Evidently she didn’t hold Americans in high esteem and Josh only confirmed her low opinion.
No wonder Cho-gam was so anxious to rid himself of this woman, he thought sardonically. She dished out insults with every other look and word. She must have cost the headman a passel of fines.
“I am Tatiana Grigoria, Countess Karanova,” she announced grandly. “I am of Russia.”
A republican to his bones, Josh didn’t set much store by titles. The fact that his father had taken a British ball through the throat at the Battle of New Orleans when Josh was no higher than a bean sprout only added to his antiroyalist sentiments.
“I figured out where you hail from, Countess. What I can’t figure is what you’re doing here, in the Valley of the Hupa.”
“I was on the ship,” she explained, her eyes darkening to a deep, shadowed purple. “From New Archangel. There was the great storm. Rain and sleet rained down, and waves, they washed me from the deck.” An involuntary shiver racked her frame and set the tiny shells decorating her dress to tinkling. “I clung atop a wooden chest for many hours. Someone pulled me and this chest from the sea. Fishermen, I think, in great, fantastical boats.”
Chinooks, Josh guessed, or possibly Yuroks. The seagoing tribes roamed the waters of the Pacific in huge canoes carved from a single, towering redwood.
“I do not remember much of these men,” she continued. “I had the fever from the time in the sea, you understand. These fishermen, they passed me to another tribe, who brought me here, to the Hupa.”
She interrupted her tale to scowl at Cho-gam. The headman blinked at her fierce look.
“This chieftain bought me,” she said in a voice of deep disdain. “He thought to take me to his bed, but I, I was not of the willingness.”
This tousle-haired female was damned fortunate she’d ended up with the Hupa instead of one of the coastal tribes. Josh had spent enough time with these peace-loving people to know it went against their way to force an unwilling woman.
Cho-gam might not have forced his reluctant bride into his bed, but he certainly wasn’t above trying to recoup his losses by selling her off. Frowning, Josh realized he’d have to make sure the headman didn’t get rid of the Russian woman until her people could come for her. Which meant, he supposed, that he’d have to buy her himself...and pay the exorbitant fee Cho-gam would no doubt charge for her keep. This countess in buckskin was going to cost him dearly, he realized. resignedly.
She interrupted his thoughts with a long, gusting sigh. “Then the snows came, and I could not leave this valley. It is most inconvenient, you understand.”
Inconvenient? Josh would have termed the killer storms that swept through the mountains as something more than inconvenient, but then he’d spent a good part of the past six years dodging them.
A determined smile charted its way across the woman’s face. Dismissing shipwreck, sickness and snow-clad peaks, she turned the full force of that smile on the man before her. “Now you have come, Jo...Jo...”
“Josiah. Josiah Jones.”
“Da!
Josiah Jones. You have come, and you will take me to the Russian settlement at Fort Ross.”
Josiah Jones. You have come, and you will take me to the Russian settlement at Fort Ross.”
For a moment...one fleeting moment...Josh considered acceding to her request. She had pluck, this countess, and she needed his help. No mountain man worth his salt ever turned his back on someone in need, whether friend or foe. Given the harsh, unforgiving land he traveled, chances were that he would need aid sooner or later himself.
Almost as quickly as the idea of taking her with him occurred, Josh dismissed it. Even if he hadn’t been under orders from the president of the United States, he couldn’t risk exposing a woman to the mountains at this time of year. As tough as Josh was, the snows had nearly bested him this time. No, she’d best stay with the Hupa until her people could come for her.
“I’d like to oblige you, Countess,” he began, “but I’m heading north, not south.”
She dismissed that minor point with an imperious wave of one hand. “You will go south first, then you may go north. I will pay you—” she gave him another, rapid once-over “—fifty rubles for your escort.”
“It’s not a matter of money,” Josh replied patiently.
“The snows are still deep in the passes. It’s no trek for a woman. You’re far better off here, with the Hupa. I’ll send word to your people when I reach the coast, and they’ll come for you as soon as the snows melt.”
Her smile took on a brittle edge. “You do not understand. It is of the greatest importance that I travel to Fort Ross most immediately.”
“So important that you can’t wait a few weeks?”
Despite his orders, Josh lived by the unwritten code of the mountains. He’d alter his plans in the blink of an eye to save a life or prevent harm.
“No, no, I cannot wait! I must arrive at Fort Ross before the trees begin to bud!”
“What trees?”
“The apple trees, and the pear. I must...I must...” She sketched circles in the air with both hands, searching for words. “I must tend to them.”
So much for a matter of life and death. Scratching his beard, Josh searched for a tactful way to tell her he had more important things to concern him than apple trees—like the future of a nation. He couldn’t find one.
“Sorry, Countess,” he replied bluntly. “I’m heading north. You’ll have to remain with the Hupa until your people can come for you.”
Angry disbelief chased across her face. “You will not take me?”
“I will not take you.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she released a slow, hissing breath.
Since Catherine’s death, Josh had lost his fear of all things mortal. In recent years, he’d heard himself described as a lone wolf. A reckless, restless wanderer. A westering man, gone tougher than the boiled rawhide he sewed into moccasins and boots. The stab of this woman’s amethyst eyes gave him pause, however. With one fierce look, she could raise a man’s fleece and send shivers all the way down his spine.
She let loose with a spate of furious Russian that Josh guessed didn’t flatter him or his parentage. Hastily, Cho-gam intervened. Although the Hupa headman didn’t understand the woman’s words, he and every other male in the lodge could hear the disrespect in her voice. He took her arm in a firm grip and hustled her toward the door.
“Do not offend our guest and cost me more fines,” he scolded in his own tongue. “Do as women do. Be circumspect in all things.”
“I am always most circumspect!” She tugged at her arm. “But I must...”
“This is a matter for men to decide,” the headman admonished sternly. Then he lowered his voice and hissed something Josh couldn’t catch.
Scowling fiercely, the Russian allowed Cho-gam to draw her to the door and usher her outside. When the flap dropped behind her, a small silence gripped the lodge. The women at the far end remained still, their eyes huge and their hands buried in dough. The elders sat stiff and disapproving in their circle around the fire. Josh stared at the deerskin flap for long moments, wondering why the outsider’s abrupt departure left a queer sort of emptiness behind.
It wasn’t so hard to figure, he told himself. Despite her tendency to throw out orders and exclamations, this Russian was a first-class, genuine belle. Not in Catherine’s exquisite style, of course, but then few women could compare to Catherine Van Buren’s serene, spun-gold beauty. As always, the memory of his betrothed caused a twinge of hurt just under Josh’s breastbone. Determinedly he pushed it aside.
Cho-gam returned to his seat, muttering under his breath. Folding his legs under him, Josh joined him on the bearskin mat. Slowly, reluctantly, the American reopened negotiations.
“I have reconsidered your offer. I will buy the woman...but not at the price you quote,” he added hastily as the headman’s face lit up.
Chapter Two
T
atiana strode toward the lodge that housed the spillover of Cho-gam’s extensive family. Her borrowed, fur-lined moccasins punched an angry beat on the snow-packed path. Frigid air frosted her breath and nipped at her cheeks, but she barely noticed its bite.
atiana strode toward the lodge that housed the spillover of Cho-gam’s extensive family. Her borrowed, fur-lined moccasins punched an angry beat on the snow-packed path. Frigid air frosted her breath and nipped at her cheeks, but she barely noticed its bite.
Holy Father above! How was it possible, that which had just occurred? After all these weeks of waiting and worrying, a traveler had finally made it through the snow-clogged passes surrounding this quiet valley. The moment she’d heard the news, she’d rushed to the headman’s main lodge, relief and excitement pounding through her veins. Despite her most urgent request, however, the broad-shouldered, scraggly bearded American had refused to escort her to Fort Ross.
The oaf! Her clenched fist swiped her thigh in frustration. The peasant!
Had her circumstances been less desperate, Tatiana would never have considered traveling anywhere with such a rough-looking individual. The women of the Hupa tribe knew him, however, and had assured her that he could be trusted. Still, she certainly wouldn’t have put herself in such a one’s hands for the trip through the high peaks, had she a choice.
The frightening truth was that she had no choice. No choice at all. If she didn’t arrive at Fort Ross with what was left of the tsar’s treasure before the sap began to rise in the fruit trees, when she returned to Russia, her life would be forfeit, as would her father’s. What little remained of her husband’s estates would revert to the crown, and the tsar’s vengeance would be complete.
Damn and thrice damn Nikolas!
Her breath puffing on the cold air, Tatiana paused outside a long, earthen-roofed lodge. Her fingers curled around the pole supporting the door covering. How in God’s name had she come to this? she wondered bleakly. A petitioner in a borrowed dress begging aid from an unkempt, uncouth American? She, who was once the spoiled darling of the Russian Imperial Court. Wife to a dashing captain of the guards. Daughter to a gentle, most learned scholar.
She leaned her forehead against the pole, fighting a wave of despair. Was it only three years ago that she’d plied her painted fan and tossed her curls and laughed like any silly, carefree fifteen-year-old? Only two since she’d gained a husband and lost the tsar’s favor? Only one since she’d been forced to watch in horror as the Imperial executioner placed a garrote around the neck of the handsome, irresponsible man she’d wed?
It seemed longer. So much longer. A lifetime of tears and tragedy.
She closed her eyes, refusing to give way to the hot, prickly rush behind her lids. Tears resolved nothing, she’d learned these past years, and only left her angry with herself for displaying such weakness.
She managed to stop her tears, but she couldn’t stop the memories that chased after them. Like the fluttering skirts of the ballerinas at St. Petersburg’s famed Bolshoi Theater, images danced across the landscape of her mind. Fragments of pictures formed, then reformed. She saw the Italian rococo magnificence of the tsar’s Winter Palace. Swayed to the music of the court orchestra. Felt again the heady, breathless joy of first love.
And the sleigh bells. Heavenly Father above, the sleigh bells! They tinkled merrily in her mind as a brightly painted troika carried her through the snowy night to her impatient groom.
How young and foolish she’d been then, Tatiana thought bitterly. How naive to believe in such an empty, meaningless emotion as love! Aleksei’s passionate devotion hadn’t lasted beyond the next smiling face that caught his eye. Eventually, Tatiana supposed, she might have learned to live with her husband’s weak character and perhaps even forgive his escapades. But she would never forgive him for bringing the tsar’s relentless fury down upon her and her father. She shuddered, remembering once more her horror when she’d learned of Aleksei’s involvement in an insane plot to curb Nikolas’s absolute power.
When the plot was exposed, only the tsarina’s personal intervention had saved Tatiana from execution alongside her husband. Still young, but no longer naive, the frightened widow had been stripped of all but the poorest of her husband’s estates. In desperation, her father had tried to redeem the family honor by sinking every ruble he had into the tsar’s Russian American Fur Company. Now, with the fur trade almost dead and the Russian settlement at Fort Ross in dire financial straits, Tatiana’s father stood to lose everything he’d invested.
She had brought them both to the point of ruin, Tatiana acknowledged, her ragged nails digging into the pole. She and her silly, girlish dreams of love. Now only she could pull them back from the brink.
She...and this rude, uncouth American. This Josiah Jones.
Tatiana raised her head, despair giving way to the implacable determination that had brought her across a vast continent and a winter-dark ocean. She had to convince the American to provide her escort to Fort Ross. She
would
convince him, one way or another.
would
convince him, one way or another.
Her jaw squaring, she lifted the doeskin flap and stepped into the lodge. The warmth of many bodies and a bright, leaping fire welcomed her. Blinking to clear her eyes of the acrid smoke from the cooking fire, Tatiana made her way to a young, very pregnant woman seated on a rug of thick beaver pelts.
Cho-gam’s fourth wife glanced up from the basket she was weaving and smiled a welcome. The cheerful, lively woman had taken Tatiana under her wing when the Russian had first arrived in the Valley of the Hupa, weak and confused from the fevers that still racked her on occasion. The countess would always be grateful for Re-Re-An’s skilled care...and for the way the beauteous Hupa had coaxed a sullen Cho-gam into her furs the first time Tatiana turned him away. She would miss Re-Re-An when she left the valley, which she must do most immediately!
“Did you see him?” the young wife asked eagerly. “The fringe person?”
“I saw him.”
Re-Re-An patted the furs beside her. “Sit! Tell me what occurred!”
Tatiana sank down into the nest of silky beaver pelts. Of necessity, she’d picked up a working knowledge of Hupa phrases these past weeks. Luckily she’d always possessed a facility for languages. She’d learned English during her father’s appointment as the old tsar’s ambassador to the Court of St. James. French had been the preferred means of address of the Russian aristocrats until that demon Napoleon had marched his armies into the heart of the Motherland. Tatiana spoke both tongues with commendable fluency, as well as several dialects of Russian. By comparison, she thought the Hupa language simple in construction, but more difficult to speak in that a single sound could have so many different meanings.
“Is he not as I described him to you?” Re-Re-An demanded in her soft, musical voice. “Tall and straight and pale of face?”
“No. He is a great, ugly, hairy bear.”
The young woman stared in surprise. “Perhaps it was not the one called Jo-Sigh-Ah.”
“It is he.”
“And you think him ugly?”
Tatiana picked at her braid, shooting a frown at the woman beside her. “Don’t you?”
“He is not handsome as are the men of the Green Snake clan, it is true. Yet when he wintered here three years ago, he lured many women to his blanket with his smile and his generous gifts.”
The Russian gave a little huff of disbelief. She couldn’t imagine any woman voluntarily bedding with such a man. He might be tall and straight and, yes, he was certainly broad of shoulder. His bushy whiskers would rasp a woman’s skin painfully, however. And he stank. There was no other word for it.
“It was not his smile that lured me,” one of the other women put in dryly. “The fringe person carries a veritable lodgepole between his legs. What’s more,” she added with a smirk, “he knows well how to use it to pleasure a woman.”
Sputters of laughter rose from the other women, followed by astonishingly frank observations about the outsider’s manly attributes. Tatiana sat in silence during the ribald commentary. She had gone beyond being shocked by the ways of the Hupa, who considered sexual congress between men and women as natural as breathing. No, the Hupa could not disgust her, but this American did. Evidently he was much like Aleksei had been, she thought contemptuously. Eager to find his way under the skirts of any woman who would lift them.
Re-Re-An caught her friend’s expression and sighed. Tatiana’s adamant refusal to lie with the wealthy, handsome Cho-gam had stirred a great deal of curiosity among the women of the tribe. The outsider had said little to satisfy that curiosity, only that she’d already had one husband and was of no mind to take another.
“Someday you’ll want again the pleasure only a man can give you,” the young Hupa predicted softly. “You have too much of the eagle in you not to wish to soar.”
“When I do,” Tatiana muttered, “you can be sure I’ll choose most particularly who I soar with. Now let us speak of other things...such as how I shall persuade the outsider to take me with him when he leaves.”
“Cho-gam will attend to that matter,” Re-Re-An predicted, her dark eyes dancing. “With your strange ways and sharp tongue, you are a very costly wife. He wishes heartily to be rid of you.”
When Tatiana huffed again, the Hupa smiled and picked up the half-finished basket. Her fingers flew as she twisted two weft strands of dried grass around stiffer warp stems of willow. After every dozen or so twists, she wove a downy white feather into the pattern. When she finished with the basket, Tatiana knew, its surface would feel as soft as a bird’s breast.
She watched in silence for a few moments, marveling at the woman’s skill. She’d never seen basketry as fine as that produced by the Hupa. The people of the valley used their exquisitely crafted products for every imaginable purpose, from gambling trays and burial containers to the more mundane tasks of cooking and storage.
Her gaze drifted to the far end of the lodge, where the oblong, lidded basket Re-Re-An had given her was propped against one wall. The straw container held all that remained of the tsar’s treasure...all that Tatiana had been able to salvage from the ocean’s depths.
The seafaring men who’d snatched her from the huge chest she’d clung to through those endless, terrifying hours had tried to capture the chest, as well. Attaching long ropes, they’d tugged the wooden box through the crashing waves, only to have it break apart on the rocks lining the shore.
Delirious and half out of her mind with fear, Tatiana had broken away from the men who held her and gathered what she could of the precious cargo. Through the weeks that followed, she’d guarded the remnants as ferociously as a mother would a child. The men who’d brought her to the Hupa didn’t recognize the value of the treasure she carried with her. No one did, except Tatiana, and her father, and the tsar.
Unless she got the treasure to Fort Ross most immediately, however, it would lose all value. Chewing on her lower lip in worry, Tatiana could only pray that Cho-gam was as determined to be rid of her as she was to leave the Valley of the Hupa.
The minutes passed slowly. The hours even more slowly. The men would talk for some time, Re-Re-An advised, sharing news of the mountains and negotiating trades. Then they would repair to the sweat house to relax and gamble and attempt to win back that which they’d just sold. Only later, when the moon tipped the mountain peaks, would they emerge from their male domain and settle down to the feast prepared in the visitor’s honor.
The women went about their tasks with a complacency that comes from ruling absolutely in their own domain. Hands slapped and shaped loaves from pounded acorn flour. Fingers sorted through dried onions to pick out weevils before soaking the flavorful roots in a tightly woven basket. Mothers spitted smoked salmon steaks and chided children to have a care of the fire.
Only Tatiana could not lose herself in the busy routine. She paced the length of the lodge, the shells decorating her borrowed dress jangling with each agitated turn. Her impatience mounted with every passing hour, as did her nervousness. When the door flap lifted and Cho-gam’s senior wife finally entered, Tatiana almost tripped over a cache of storage baskets in her eagerness to reach the older woman’s side.
“It is done,” the senior wife announced calmly in answer to her anxious question. “The fringe person agreed to your purchase price.”
Tatiana murmured a fervent prayer of thanksgiving. She would see that the American was repaid. Whatever he’d given for her, she’d see that he was repaid the minute they reached Fort Ross. She was so excited by the prospect of reaching her journey’s end at last that she almost missed the other woman’s next comment.
“...generously for your lodging until he sends for you.”
Her chin jerked up. “What do you say?”
“Do you not listen, Ta-Ti-An? You will remain with the Hupa until the fringe person sends one of your own tribe to collect you.”
Disappointment and disbelief crashed over her in great waves. “I cannot stay here! I will not!”
The senior wife drew herself up in offended dignity.
Tatiana stuttered an apology. “I’m...I’m sorry. You’ve been most kind. I thank you from my heart for your generosity. But I must, I will, go to Fort Ross most immediately.”
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