Merline Lovelace (3 page)
Authors: Countess In Buckskin
The older woman clucked in reproof. “That is for your man to say.”
“My man?”
“The one who has purchased you. You belong to him now, and he will decide where you are or are not to go.”
“We will see about that,” Tatiana muttered through clenched teeth. “Most immediately.”
She stalked to the door, determination in every line of her taut body. Re-Re-An pushed herself up awkwardly and snatched at her friend’s arm in alarm.
“Ta-Ti-An! The men have gone to the sweat house! You must not disturb them!”
“You say not? Watch me.”
She marched through the camp, trailing a retinue of shocked, disapproving women, openmouthed children and yipping dogs.
The small, flat-roofed lodge that served as sweat house for the tribe stood at the edge of the village, close by the ice-encrusted stream that fed it. Although not strictly forbidden to females except during that time of the month when evil spirits flowed from their bodies, few Hupa women had the time to waste in the sweat house. The men, on the other hand, lazed away many hours casting painted bones and gossiping like magpies while a cleansing steam sizzled with each drip of water onto heated stones.
Consequently, a ring of astonished male faces turned to Tatiana when she threw back the flap and stalked inside. One by one, jaws dropped. Dozens of dark eyes rounded. Cho-gam started up in dismay, only to remember that he was no longer accountable for her actions. A wide grin splitting his sweat-streaked face, he sank back to his woven mat.
Ignoring the headman, Tatiana stalked to the flabbergasted outsider. He scrambled to his feet, snatching at the closest object to cover himself. Skin already flushed a bright pink from the damp heat turned a furious shade of red as he slapped a flat gambling basket across his midsection.
The sight of his powerful body glistening with sweat stopped Tatiana in her tracks. By the saints, he was most—she swallowed—most impressive.
Another long-forgotten memory flitted through her mind. Once, when her father was yet the tsar’s ambassador to the English court, he had taken her to see the famous marble statues Lord Elgin had brought from Greece. The statuary had scandalized Tatiana’s governess and left an indelible impression on her goggle-eyed young charge. Yet none of the magnificent, sculpted male forms Tatiana had glimpsed that day could compare to this one.
Unclothed, the American appeared anything but rough and unrefined. Freed of the ugly beaver hat, his golden brown hair curled with the dampness and molded a strong, proud forehead. Even his beard looked less scraggly, curling likewise in the wet heat. The sun had burned his face and neck and lower arms to leather toughness. In contrast, the corded muscles of his chest and shoulders gleamed like the purest alabaster. More honey brown hair traced lightly across his chest and tapered to an arrow just above the basket’s rim. Lean, muscular flanks quivered in what Tatiana guessed was outrage. She caught a glimpse of a tight, white buttock before he noticed the direction of her interested gaze and shifted the basket.
“Are you snow-bit?” he demanded in a low, furious voice.
“I do not think so.”
“You can’t mean to tell me it’s the Russian way to come busting into a roomful of naked men?”
“We are not in Russia,” Tatiana observed tartly.
“We are in the Valley of the Hupa, where I do not wish to remain any longer.”
“You’d best resign yourself to it, Countess, because here is just where you’re going to stay until your people come for you.”
Her hands went to her hips. “No, I tell you, I will not stay longer.”
Josh stared at the woman in disbelief. Hellfire and damnation, had she no shame? No sense of decorum? Sweet, refined Catherine would have been mortified at the very idea of catching a roomful of men in their altogether! Yet this Russian female stood toe-to-toe with him, arguing like a fishwife, with only a dad-blamed basket between her and his unfeathered hide.
Sniggers of male laughter stiffened Josh’s spine. He didn’t need to catch Cho-gam’s eye to know that the Hupa men were enjoying this scene mightily... and that this display of poor manners by the woman Josh now owned would cost him. His jaw tight, he realized that he’d have to exert his mastery over the Russian or lose all standing with the men of the tribe.
“It appears to me you don’t rightly have much say in what you will or will not do,” he growled. “Just count yourself lucky that you’re safe, and haul your behind out of here.”
“Be-hind?” Her winged brows lifted. “What is this be-hind?”
Juggling his basket and his dignity, Josh took her arm and swished her around. He put the flat of his palm to the body part in question and propelled her toward the lodge’s door.
“That is your be-hind, and this is the end of our discussion.”
He expected a screech of outrage. At the very least, a yelp or two of feminine indignation. What he didn’t expect was the swiftness with which she whirled back to him...or the feral snarl that curled her lips.
“In Russia,” she hissed, “you would lose your hand for daring to lay it on the Countess Karanova.”
“We are not in Russia,” he retorted, throwing her own words back at her. “We are in the Valley of the Hupa, and the Countess Karanova is making a dangblasted spectacle of us both.”
“I? I make the spectacle?” Her purple eyes flashed as they raked Josh from nose to toe. “I am not the one who hides his nakedness behind a basket.”
Maybe it was the scorn dripping like rainwater from her voice. Or her display of disdain for his manly physique. Or the cussed Kentucky stubbornness that Catherine had often chided Josh about in her gentle way. When it came right down to it, he didn’t much care what put up his hackles. He bent until his nose was scant inches from the tip-tilted one in front of him.
“Now you look here, Countess. I’m not taking you with me through the mountains and that’s that. So I suggest you hightail it right out of here, before—”
“Before you strike me again?” she challenged, her face as flushed and angry as his.
“I’ve never struck a woman in my life,” he answered, offended. Then his brow lowered. “But you tempt me. You tempt mightily.”
“Ha!” Her chin jutted. “
Amerikanski promyshlenik!”
Amerikanski promyshlenik!”
Josh had no idea what he’d just been called, but he didn’t much like the sound of it. Another snigger from the watching Hupa told him he had to end this farce. Reaching out, he took her chin in a hard, relentless hold.
“Listen to me, Countess. A man has only one use for a female in the mountains this time of year, and that’s to keep his backside warm during the cold nights. If you think you’re up to that task, I might reconsider taking you with me.”
She stared up at him, her eyes widening as she grasped his meaning. They reminded Josh of the sky over the New Mexico Territory just before sunset, all deep, purply dark and endless. They also, he realized belatedly, showed no signs of retreat.
What in blazes did it take to put this female in her place? Tightening his grip on her chin, he tilted her head back.
“Maybe I should take a sample of what you’re offering. Before I decide whether or not I want you to warm my backside...or any other side.”
Her mouth opened in a sputter of protest at the same moment Josh bent and covered it with his. He meant to frighten her. He intended to make her realize the folly of attempting the mountains with a stranger. Yet the touch of her butter-soft lips under his sent his righteous intentions winging. What remained was the urge to plumb the depths of the hot, moist mouth. He angled her head and did just that.
The taste of her carried the kick of Taos lightning. Like that fiery, potent brew, she sent heat streaking through his body straight to his gut. His muscles stiffened in response. All of them.
Josh had barely registered his own reaction when he felt the ripple of shock that coursed through her. He’d made his point, he knew. He’d put the fear of God and man into her. He should pull back. Should release his hard hold on her chin. He might have, had she not jerked it out of his hand first.
They faced each other, their breath rasping in the sudden stillness that gripped the lodge. Josh saw the thunderclouds billowing in her eyes and braced himself. Whatever she threw at him, he deserved. Even Catherine, demure, dainty Catherine, might have rocked back, wound up, and planted her fist alongside his jaw for such rough, backwoods behavior.
Once more the Russian woman surprised him. Her eyes stormy, she stared at him for several moments. Then she lifted her chin and gave him an in-your-eye countess kind of look.
“You have dropped your basket,” she announced with a curl of her lip.
Josh had been in some uncomfortable predicaments in his life. Once, he’d wrestled a grizzly to the ground. Another time, he’d stretched out under a crust of ice in a frozen stream for nigh on to an eternity to escape detection by an unfriendly band of Crow. But it took more pure, cussed nerve not to snatch up the damned basket at that moment than he remembered exercising in either of those other memorable events. Squaring his shoulders, he pasted a mocking grin on his face.
“If I took you with me on the trail, there’d be no baskets or anything else between us come nightfall. I’d want you bare-skinned and buck-ass naked when you shared my blankets. Think about that before you pester me again, Countess.”
That shook her tail feathers a bit. She reared back, shock wiping the haughtiness from her face.
Josh ignored a sharp prick of conscience at speaking so coarsely to a woman. He’d been raised by a mother who pounded Bible passages, respect for others and a modicum of manners into her son with the end of a broomstick. Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, superintendent of the gray fortress perched high above the Hudson River, had taken up the task where Elizabeth Jones had left off.
Four years at West Point had sanded down a good many of Josh’s rough, fiercely independent Kentucky edges. After that, Catherine Van Buren had done her best to polish those edges to a fine shine. She would have been horrified to hear him speak so crudely.
The countess didn’t exactly appear horrified, but she made no effort to hide her contempt. She gave Josh another, scorching once-over. Then, to his infinite relief, she surrendered the field. Shell ornaments clinking, she spun around and headed for the door.
He was just letting out a sigh of relief when she halted. She turned slowly, her face a pale blur in the shadows. Involuntarily his muscles tensed.
“I shall think about that, Josiah Jones,” she informed him in a low, flat voice. “Most assuredly, I shall think about that.”
Chapter Three
T
atiana hugged her knees and stared into a darkness broken only by the faint glow of the banked cook fire. The distant sounds of revelry drifted to her from Cho-gam’s main lodge. The feasting in honor of the unexpected guest had gone on for hours now, and sounded as though it would continue for hours yet.
atiana hugged her knees and stared into a darkness broken only by the faint glow of the banked cook fire. The distant sounds of revelry drifted to her from Cho-gam’s main lodge. The feasting in honor of the unexpected guest had gone on for hours now, and sounded as though it would continue for hours yet.
Tatiana had taken no part in the lively activity. She’d retreated to the lodge she shared with Cho-gam’s lesser wives to do as she’d told the wanderer she would do...think. Unfortunately, several hours of that laborious activity had only added to her turmoil.
Her gaze slid to the sleeping woman a few feet away. Re-Re-An had left the feast some time ago, driven by her advanced state of pregnancy to seek her bed. Tatiana studied her back for a moment, then called softly so as not to disturb the small children hunched under furs all around them.
“Re-Re-An.”
When no sound emerged from the bundled woman, she called again.
“Re-Re-An.”
The wolfskin blanket shifted. “What?”
“Tell me again what you know of the one called Josiah.”
The young Hupa muttered a sleepy protest. “It’s late, Ta-Ti-An.”
“Please.”
“What more is there to tell? He is much a man.” She gave a low gurgle of laughter. “As you have discovered for yourself.”
“Do not speak to me again of lodgepoles!”
Muffled chuckles rose from Re-Re-An’s form, causing Tatiana’s face to heat. The Hupa women had teased her unmercifully about the happenings in the sweat house. They’d also shared every intimate detail with those who’d not been present. With each telling, the fringe person’s masculine attributes became more exaggerated, until Tatiana could not listen without turning as red as one of the Hupas’ prized woodpecker scalps.
She, a habitué of the tsar’s worldly, sophisticated court! A woman truly wed and cruelly widowed! Blushing in the dark like an untried girl at the memory of the American’s outrageous response to their kiss. He’d hidden it behind the basket tray, or tried to. When the tray dropped, however, half of the Green Snake clan had seen evidence of his randiness.
Such were the ways of men, Tatiana thought with a lash of contempt. Men like Aleksei and this American, at any rate. They’d rise like an overeager wolf pup at the mere scent of a female, and lie with any woman who would lift her skirts.
And yet...
Grudgingly Tatiana admitted that perhaps the American was not quite like Aleksei. For all his surprisingly skilled kiss and blatant male arousal, he still balked at taking her with him into the mountains. If this Josiah Jones were truly of the same nature as her reckless, feckless husband, he’d experience no such qualms. He’d pull her headlong into danger with him, heedless of all consequences.
Resting her chin on her knees, Tatiana frowned into the shadows. He was a puzzlement, this American. One she could not decipher, any more than she could decipher her own reaction to his kiss. Even now the memory of his mouth on hers added to the heat in her cheeks and the tumult in her mind.
She shook her head in disgust at her so foolish reaction. By Saint Igor! It was only a kiss! Bestowed upon her by a rough, hairy peasant, no less. Of a certainty, she’d been kissed before. Many times. By her husband...and by one or two of the courtiers who’d danced to her merry tune before she’d run off with Aleksei. She had no reason to remember the press of the American’s lips every time she closed her eyes, or taste him on her tongue at odd moments, as she had for the past few hours. Kisses weren’t worth a copper kopeck. Had she not learned that lesson all too well from her husband?
The memory of Aleksei’s perfidy sent a lance of regret and pain shafting through her. He was dead, she reminded herself stonily. Strangled before her eyes at the orders of a vengeful tsar... as she might be, if she did not fulfill her mission. Shuddering, she forced her thoughts back to the American.
“Tell me about him,” she demanded again of Re-Re-An.
Sighing, the tired woman rolled over to face Tatiana. “I don’t know more than I have told you. He lived with us three winters ago and contributed much meat to the cook fires with his long rifle. He took no wife, although he shared his blanket with several willing women.” Re-Re-An slanted her a sideways look. “As he would share it with you, should you wish it.”
Wishing had little to do with the matter, Tatiana thought starkly. Was she prepared to lie with the American to get to Fort Ross? That was more properly the question she must answer.
This Josiah Jones wanted her, in the way a man wants a woman. She’d tasted his want on his mouth. Felt the strength of it in his hard grip. Seen it in his physical arousal. As he’d made clear, if Tatiana truly desired to go with him, she must offer the use of her body in exchange for his escort.
Could she do that?
Holy Mother above, should she?
It would be only her body that she offered, she reasoned bleakly. Not her soul. No matter what occurred between her and this crude American, her soul remained hers and hers alone. It had survived Aleksei’s perfidies and the tsar’s unrelenting fury. It would surely survive the act of lying with a stranger.
That much she’d learned from her father. In his scholarly wisdom and simple faith, he had taught her well. The outer vessel mattered not if the inner core was pure and strong.
The thought of her father stripped Tatiana’s dilemma to its most essential element. He’d looked so frail when last she’d seen him, his shoulders stooped as he watched her carriage drive off. He would not last a week in one of the tsar’s dank prisons.
She must get to Fort Ross.
Tatiana’s inner turmoil subsided. Her father was all she had left in the world. All she’d ever had, really. Whatever she must do to spare his life and hers, she would do.
Unlacing her fingers, she eased down onto the elk hide that served as her sleeping mat. She’d best get what sleep she could. Once she left the Valley of the Hupa with Josiah Jones, she would not rest easy again. Squeezing her eyes shut, she commanded herself to ignore the sounds of laughter and male voices drifting from Cho-gam’s main lodge. She would not think more. She would only sleep, and do what she must.
Tatiana rose before the sun, as did the others in the lodge. She dressed quickly and snatched a hurried meal of boiled acorn mush. From all reports, the outsider planned to leave the village early, and she intended to leave when he did.
With Re-Re-An’s assistance, she rolled a few essentials into a small bundle and tied it with rawhide thongs. Then she pulled on several layers of borrowed outer garments, promising to send gifts in payment. Re-Re-An accepted her promises with a nod and pressed a cloak of thick fox pelts on her.
“No,” Tatiana protested, pushing the silky fur back into her friend’s hands. “It is too fine, and the air is not as chill as it was a few weeks ago.”
“The mountains still hold their winter spirits,” the young wife insisted. “You will need this cloak, and more, to keep warm at night.”
Tatiana’s throat went dry. She’d keep warm enough at night The American would heat her, or she him. Swallowing, she tried to refuse Re-Re-An’s gift.
The Hupa woman would not be denied. “Take this, Ta-Ti-An, in recognition of our friendship.”
Moved to tears by the generosity of a woman whose standing in the tribe was measured by her possessions, Tatiana gave her a fierce hug. “I thank you from my heart. This gift and the gift of your friendship I shall repay most particularly.”
Wrapping the warm cloak around her shoulders, Tatiana shoved her arms through the side slits. In her thick leggings and layers of clothing, she must look much like the burly barrel maker on her father’s summer estate beside the Black Sea, as round as she was tall. She slung the strap of the small bundle over her shoulder and moved to the long, rectangular basket that held the tsar’s treasure. Grunting with effort, she dragged the basket forward and laced it securely with hide thongs.
“It is to be hoped Cho-gam sold the fringe person a healthy pony,” Re-Re-An commented worriedly, surveying the bulky woven container. “This will add greatly to its burdens.”
Tatiana didn’t reply. Whatever else the American packed on the pony’s back, her basket must take precedence. Dragging the basket behind her by a thong handle, she headed for the door. Re-Re-An joined her as she stepped out into the cold, crisp morning.
Involuntarily Tatiana paused. Even after all these weeks in the Valley of the Hupa, the spectacular beauty of the dawn had the power to take her breath away. Purple mountains surrounded the valley and thrust up like jagged teeth into a dark sky feathered with blue. Although the sun hadn’t yet shown its face, its rays painted the snow-covered peaks a molten gold.
Tatiana drank in the splendor like fine, sparkling wine. Then the enormity of what she was about to attempt struck her. Biting her lip, she eyed the snows covering the mountain slopes in a different manner altogether. For a moment, fear slithered down her back.
Resolutely she shook her doubts away. She’d come through those craggy, forbidding peaks once, she reminded herself. They’d worn snow only on the highest reaches at that time, and she didn’t remember much of the journey, but she’d come through.
Re-Re-An’s gaze turned from the bursting dawn to Tatiana’s face. Worry shadowed her eyes, but she kept it from her voice.
“I shall pray to the spirit of the mountains for your safe passage,” she said softly. “You and your man.”
“He’s not my man.” Tatiana gripped the basket’s leather thong once more. “Only the one I travel with.”
Re-Re-An’s mischievous smile tugged at her mouth. “In our tribe it is enough that he pays your bride-price and you go with him. He is yours for as long as you choose to claim him, just as you are his.”
“Right now, I want only to find the man,” Tatiana muttered. Her breath puffing, she peered through the still, hazy light.
The village stirred with its usual morning activity. Smoke from cook fires curled through the rooftop openings of lodges. Children trudged to and from the icy stream with bulging water skins. Some yards from the village, a pack of dogs barked wildly and chased a fleeting rabbit across the snow, causing the penned horses to stamp and snort.
To her surprise, Tatiana detected no signs of activity outside Cho-gam’s main lodge. She had expected to find the outsider’s packhorse tied next to the entrance, already bundled for travel. The heavy basket thumped her heels as she trudged forward, frowning more with each step. Did he not leave today, after all? Had the late-night revels so exhausted him that he’d decided to remain another day in the village?
She thought she had the answer to her unspoken questions when Cho-gam stepped outside. He squinted at the two women through bleary, red-rimmed eyes.
“You look like a moose with a nose full of porcupine quills,” his young wife informed him with a merry laugh.
The headman grunted.
“Is the one called Josiah within?” Tatiana inquired, wondering how long it would take before the American was ready to leave. Now that the final leg of her long journey was upon her, she wished only to get on with it.
“No,” Cho-gam replied. “He’s gone.”
“Gone!” Tatiana’s exclamation cut through the morning air like the call of a raucous crow. “How can he be gone? The sun just now rises.”
Grimacing, the headman motioned with both hands for her to take the shrillness from her voice. “He left an hour ago, saying he could find his way across the valley well enough by the moon’s light on the snow. He wishes to make the first pass before nightfall.”
Tatiana felt as though a great hand had grabbed her heart and squeezed. She stared at the headman in dismay. Her mouth opened, but no words could pass through her tight, closed throat.
“Jo-Sigh-Ah paid well for your keep,” Cho-gam advised calmly. “You will stay with us until the snows melt. Then he will send outsiders to fetch you.”
Dismay gave way to a whip of anger. After all her worrying! All her soul-searching! Her troublesome decision to pay whatever price the American demanded for his escort! She’d hardly slept the night through, and now she was greeted with the news that he’d left her. He’d walked off and left her. A vile curse rose in Tatiana’s heart. If she ever came within sight of the cur again, he would rue his actions. He’d rue them most heartily.
As swiftly as the thought occurred, another followed closely on its heels. The American would see her again, and soon! Chewing on her lower lip, she considered a dangerous alteration to her plans.
Cho-gam eyed the woman before him warily. After many weeks of responsibility for the volatile, outspoken female, he could read the signs of impending trouble on her face as clearly as fox tracks in the snow.
He’d set a stiff price to house this woman until the snows melted, but now the headman wondered if the price was worth the trouble she would cause in the weeks ahead. Without meaning to, she offended. Without trying to, she shocked. Her heart was good, but her mouth too often gave vent to sharp words that she would do better to hold within her. Even worse, her troublesome ways seemed to be spreading to the other women of the tribe. Merry, smiling Re-Re-An had never before dared to send her husband such glowering, disrespectful looks, as she now did!
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