Only Mine (4 page)

“Very few men are cruel to elves.”

A delicate shiver of pleasure moved over Jessica’s skin as Wolfe resumed brushing her hair.

“You’re shivering. Would you like a wrap?”

“It was pleasure, not a cold draft that made me shiver.”

Again, Wolfe’s hand hesitated as the meaning underlying Jessica’s words sent a shaft of desire through him.

“Did Lady Victoria teach you to flirt like this?” he asked curiously.

“Flirting consists of feints and sighs and lies. I am merely telling the truth. It never felt this good when Betsy brushed my hair.”

There was a time of silence broken only by the whisper of soft bristles through Jessica’s hair. Finally, Wolfe put the brush aside, turned her until her back was to him, and divided the dark red mass of her hair into three equal lots. The touch of his hands on her nape made her shiver again.

“It’s a pity we’re all wrong for each other as man and wife,” Wolfe said quietly as he wove her hair into a single thick braid. “There is passion in you, Jessi.”

Abruptly, Jessica’s body became rigid. “I think not,” she said distinctly. “The thought of lying with a man makes my stomach twist.”

“Why?”

The quiet question startled Jessica. “Would you like a man doing that to you?” she demanded.

“A man?” Wolfe laughed. “No, not a man. But a woman…ah, that’s a different thing entirely.”

“Only for a man,” she retorted. “He is strong enough to say yes or no as it pleases him. When
it’s finally finished, he doesn’t lie weeping on the bed. Nor does he scream in agony months later, as what he put in the woman’s body tears her apart trying to get out!”

“Someone has filled your head with nonsense. It’s not like that.”

“Not for a man, certainly.”

“Nor for a woman.”

“From what great font of wisdom do you draw this conclusion?” Jessica asked sardonically. “Have you attended a woman in childbed?”

“Of course not. Neither have you. Hand me the light blue ribbon.”

“Ah, but I have,” she retorted, grabbing the ribbon and holding it over her shoulder.

“What? I can’t imagine Victoria permitting that.”

“It was before I went to live with her.”

Wolfe’s hands paused. He took the ribbon and began wrapping it around the tail of the single braid he had woven.

“You were only nine when Lady Victoria became your guardian. What was a girl so young doing at a birthing?”

Jessica shrugged. “I was the first born. My mother had many pregnancies before cholera took her.”

“You never told me you had brothers and sisters.”

“I don’t.” An involuntary shudder moved over Jessica as memories tried to surface, memories she had banished to her nightmares years ago.

“Jessi,” Wolfe said. He touched the curve of her neck with a gentle fingertip. “A young girl doesn’t always understand what she’s seeing, especially when it comes to the mystery of sex or birth. But
if it was all so terrible, no woman would bear more than one babe.”

“Not willingly, no. Have you noticed, my Lord Wolfe, that men are considerably stronger than women, and considerably more interested in rutting?” Abruptly Jessica’s hands swept up and down her own arms, rubbing warmth into skin that was cold. “You’re right. It’s cool in here. I wonder where Betsy put my Chinese shawl. Do you see it, Wolfe?”

For the space of a breath there was no answer. Then Wolfe sighed and accepted the change of subject. “I’ll get it for you as soon as I finish braiding your hair.”

Jessica turned and looked over her shoulder at Wolfe. She smiled at him with lips that were too pale. “Thank you, my lord.”

“I’m not your lord.” The protest was automatic, but not angry. He had seen the gratitude in her eyes, and the fear that lay beneath it.

“Then thank you, my husband.”

“I’m not that, either. A wife lies with her husband. Or are you planning to pursue the vows of the Scottish marriage ceremony we took?”

“What?”

“’With my body I thee worship,’” Wolfe quoted softly. “Are you planning to worship me, wife?”

Jessica turned away quickly, but not so quickly that Wolfe missed the horror in her eyes. Knowing that he repelled her as a man made anger twist as deeply in Wolfe as desire. The knowledge that he now had a weapon with which to force Jessica into an annulment should have pleased him, but it did not.

“What if I demanded my husbandly rights?”

She flinched, but said instantly, “You would not.”

“You sound very certain.”

“You didn’t want our marriage. If you rut on me, you can’t cry annulment.”

Wolfe’s mouth turned down in a bitter curl. “You’re right, Lady Jessica. I will never
rut
on you. I don’t want to be saddled for life with a creature so spoiled and useless she can’t even comb her own hair.”

He tied off the ribbon with a few abrupt motions.

“Wolfe, I—”

“Start packing your clothes,” he interrupted curtly. With grim pleasure, he saw Jessica’s look of surprise and uncertainty. “Don’t know how to pack? What a surprise. You had better learn quickly, Lady Jessica. The stage leaves in an hour. You will be on it, with or without your six trunks.”

She looked at the armoires and wardrobes that had been brought into the suite of rooms in order to hold all her clothes. Then she looked at the locked trunks. It seemed impossible that so much clothing had come from so little packing space.

“It took Betsy the better part of a week to pack when we left,” Jessica said faintly.

Wolfe ran a measuring eye over the armoires and wardrobes. “That’s because you brought too much. Sort out what you’ll need for a month. Leave the rest here.”

“Are we planning to come back here so quickly?”

“Not we. You. You’ll be back as soon as you get it through your stubborn Scots skull that you don’t want to be an American wife married to a halfbreed commoner.”

Jessica’s head came up. “I remember other vows, Wolfe Lonetree. Whither thou goest, I will go.
Whither thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people will be my people, and thy God, my God.”

“My shaman grandfather will be pleased to have such an obedient granddaughter.” Wolfe’s lips curved in his dark face. “I wonder how you’ll look in buckskin, beads, and shells. How will you like chewing my meat before it comes to my mouth so that my food will be tender for me, and chewing my buckskins so they will be soft and supple against my body?”

“You’re joking.”

“Am I?” Wolfe smiled, showing all his white teeth and not one bit of comfort. “I’m going to walk to the stage office and buy two tickets. When I come back, I expect to see the trunks lined up and waiting to go, and you with them.”

The door closed behind Wolfe’s broad shoulders. Jessica looked at the ill-made wood frame and the tarnished brass hinges. As she turned away, she caught a glance of herself in the dressing glass. The odd, simple hairstyle made her look like a child playing in her mother’s clothes. Each time she moved, the braid caught on the many buttons on the back of her dress. With an impatient sound, she brought the heavy braid over her shoulder and down between her breasts, where it would be less trouble.

Setting her mouth in a determined line, Jessica pulled a key ring from the pocket of her skirt, opened the padlocks on all of the trunks, and tossed the jangling ring onto the bedside table. Then she went among the wardrobes and armoires and began assessing their contents.

The first wardrobe contained shoes, boots, hatboxes, purses, jackets, and coats. Jessica shut the doors and went on to an armoire. It contained corsets,
crinolines of varying fullness, gloves, and lingerie. The third contained day dresses. The fourth held riding dresses. The fifth held the ball gown from her twentieth birthday. And so it went, until she had looked in everything.

Jessica heaved up the lid of the nearest trunk, which happened to be one that Wolfe had brought in. A sound of surprise came from her lips when she realized the trunk was already full. She had assumed both trunks were empty by the ease with which Wolfe had handled them, but this one contained her fishing and hunting gear, her favorite books, and a small sidesaddle that looked elegant despite its off-center horn.

On the top of trunk, protected by a beautifully worked leather case, lay a wedding present from Lord Robert—a matched Winchester rifle and carbine, saddle scabbards, and enough cartridges to start a war. The weapons were inlaid with intricate patterns of gold and silver. The carbine magazine held thirteen shells and the rifle held fifteen. The loading port was cleverly placed so that shells could be loaded nearly as fast as they could be shot. Wolfe had taken one look at the gift, lifted out the repeating rifle, and run his hands over it like a man touching a lover.

It’s almost worth getting married to a useless aristocrat to own such a fine rifle.

Almost, but not quite.

The memory of Wolfe’s sardonic words made Jessica sigh as she set aside the case and turned to an empty trunk. The top tray came free after a struggle, leaving the rest of the trunk empty. At first she tried to work as Betsy had, putting in each piece as though it were a bit of a very fragile puzzle.

Quickly, Jessica realized that she would still be
packing come sundown if she continued working with one item at a time. Besides, none of the items fit together anyway.

She began dumping armload after armload of things into the trunks. By the time she cleaned the wardrobe of shoes and purses and coats, she had filled three trunks with heaps of leather and boxes and cloth. Frowning, she tried to remember if there had been that many trunks full of accessories when Betsy had unpacked.

“I’m sure I had no more than a single trunk, and perhaps part of another that was filled with such things.”

With a sound of exasperation, Jessica heaped more things into two of the already full trunks. When she went to shut them, she found that the trunk lids were stubborn and ill-fitting. The contents were stiff and oddly shaped. No matter how she pushed with her hands, the lids wouldn’t close enough to fasten the hasp.

Finally, she crawled up on each lid in turn and bounced up and down to settle the contents. Only then could she force the top of the trunk to meet the bottom. The instant she climbed down to fasten the hasp, the lid popped up once more. In the end, she had to stay on the lid and struggle upside-down to close the hasps and fit the padlocks. Twice she almost locked the end of her hip-length braid in with the other contents.

“The trunks never behaved this badly for Betsy,” Jessica muttered.

After packing two more trunks, she opened the gold watch that was pinned to her dress, read the time, and frowned. Wolfe would be back at any moment. She wanted to prove she wasn’t a
useless aristocrat
by being packed and ready to go.

“Soonest begun, soonest ended,” Jessica told herself bracingly, and blew stray wisps of hair away from her flushed face.

She piled the rest of the day dresses on top of the others and began shoving cloth down into the trunk, leaning hard on the resilient material, trying to crush everything down to the size of the trunk. Just before she jumped onto the lid in order to force it shut, she remembered the ballgown and the riding clothes. She looked at the trunk she had been jamming clothes into, then at the single remaining trunk she hadn’t yet opened. The trunk beneath her hands was definitely larger.

“Oh, blazes,” Jessica muttered. “The gown will have to go in this trunk.”

The ballgown felt as smooth and weightless as moonlight, but it had yard after yard of material. No matter how she rolled, stuffed, bunched, and punched the dress, she couldn’t get it to stay within the confines of the trunk.

Wearily, Jessica straightened. The sound of a rag picker crying his wares on the street lured her to the window. When she looked out, she saw a tall, familiar shape striding down the street toward the hotel.

Jessica rushed to the trunk, frantically smashed the ballgown down, slammed the lid and leaned her weight on it. At first the lid hung up, but it finally managed to swallow all that it had been fed. She fumbled hasp and lock into position, and slammed the padlock shut.

“One left.”

As Jessica straightened and turned toward the remaining trunk, she was hauled up short by a yank on her braid. She glanced over her shoulder. The last third of her hair vanished into the locked
trunk. She wrapped her hands around the braid and pulled. Nothing happened. She pulled harder. The hair remained firmly caught. She yanked and then yanked again, but stayed tethered to the trunk.

“Blast and blazes! I’ll have to unlock the confounded thing and do it all over again.”

Then Jessica discovered she couldn’t reach the key ring she had left on the bedside table. Nor could she drag the trunk closer. Pushing seemed to have a better effect. Shoving, panting, Jessica alternated between shoulder and hands as she inched the stubborn trunk closer to the bedside table. One of the trunk’s brassbound corners caught on an irregularity in the wood floor. No matter how she pushed, the trunk didn’t move.

The thought of Wolfe coming in the room and finding her prisoner to one of her own surly trunks gave Jessica a desperate surge of strength. She shoved repeatedly against the top edge of the trunk, trying to jostle it free.

Without warning, the heavy trunk tipped up and rolled over, taking Jessica with it, yanking her off her feet. She gave a startled shriek as she went head over heels and landed on the floor in a tangle of soft blue cloth.

An instant later the door to the suite banged open. Wolfe stood in the doorway looking as dangerous as the long knife in his hand. The steel blade was a stark contrast to his well-cut, dark wool suit and white linen shirt.

“Jessi? Where are you?”

She grimaced but knew there was no escape. “Over here.”

Wolfe stepped into the suite. He glanced in the direction of her voice, saw an upside-down trunk
and a tangle of blue cloth, creamy lingerie, and dainty blue shoes. In three long strides he was next to her.

“Are you all right?”

“Just ducky,” she said through her teeth.

“What are you doing on the floor?”