Authors: Monica Barrie
Silver Moon (19 page)
Brace looked at the governor. “Finish this…business. You are well protected now.”
Albright glanced at Brace. “I will not conduct business with weapons threatening my men!”
Suddenly, Brace no longer wanted to play this game. Turning to the Sorrels, he stared at them until Carl broke his gaze, but Elizabeth’s hatred was so strong that it made her stand up to him.
“It’s over, Lady Sorrel. End this insanity before you lose everything, including your freedom.”
Elizabeth refused to speak to him. Instead, she looked at the governor. “Order your men to take him away!”
Brace kept his eyes locked on Elizabeth’s, although he spoke to Albright. “That would be an even bigger mistake than what you are doing now, Excellency. My imprisonment,” he said in a loud enough voice for everyone to hear, “would bring your head to the king’s feet.”
Elizabeth laughed wildly. “Do you hear him? He thinks he is of the blood! Arrest him!” she screamed. As she spoke, Carl Sorrel, his features twisted with rage, charged at Brace.
Brace sidestepped the fat man and, without exerting himself, pushed Elizabeth’s off-balanced husband to his knees.
“Enough!” Brace shouted. Turning, he strode to the governor’s desk. Albright stiffened; his hands trembled visibly.
“Stop him!” he ordered the two clerks who had been silently watching everything, taking it all in so they might tell the tale to all who would listen later on. Neither man moved.
When Brace reached the desk, he stared directly into the governor’s eyes. “This will be your last chance,” he said in a low voice. “Rescind the orders you have just issued, and place those three under arrest.”
“You’re mad! You cannot threaten the acting governor and expect to get away with it,” Albright stated, drawing some degree of courage from himself.
“No, Excellency, far from it.” With that, he reached into his jacket and withdrew several sheets of paper. “I would suggest you read these very, very carefully. They will make the difference between your being accused as an accomplice, or looked upon as an honest man.”
Albright, puzzled by the statement, and sensing a vastly different undertone to Brace’s words, took the papers. He studied them, his eyes rising every few lines to look at Brace.
When he finished, Brace held out his hand. The governor stared at the signet ring and slowly nodded. “My lord,” he said, his voice obsequiously ingratiating.
Rising slowly, the acting governor came around the desk and stood next to Brace. He looked directly at the captain of the guard. “Everything is under control,” he said. “There has been a mistake. This man is not a criminal, he is…he is the Duke of Wadworth, a…a member of the Royal Family.”
Brace heard the shocked intake of breath as he stared at the Sorrels. “Have them placed under arrest. Him, too,” Brace ordered, pointing to the unmoving form of Hollingsby.
“Yes, my lord,” Albright said.
“The charges will be abduction and murder.”
“Yes, my lord,” Albright repeated.
“Excellency, the affidavits, when are they dated?”
Albright’s face showed puzzlement. He turned to the clerk. “March fifteen and sixteen of ’37,” the clerk responded.
“For your edification, Excellency, and for evidence in the trials of the Sorrels, Lady Louden was aboard the ship Brittania on those dates, as well as on the date of the high judge’s warrant. Therefore, these documents must be forgeries. I’m sure the high judge will disavow them.”
Albright looked at Brace, and did not miss the full meaning of his words. Although the seal affixed to the high judge’s document was authentic, Albright knew that under the circumstances, the high judge would disavow any knowledge of the warrant.
“Take them!” Albright ordered when Will McClintock lowered his musket.
Smiling at Elyse, who gazed at him with wonder, Brace went toward her. As the guards approached her aunt and uncle, she realized her nightmare was over. With her heart beating fast, and her love for Brace swirling through her, she took her first step toward him.
Just when she was within arm’s reach of Brace, and one guard grasped Elizabeth Sorrel’s arm, Carl Sorrel let out an anguished growl. Her uncle dove to the floor and rolled behind Brace, moving faster than she’d ever seen him move. When he gained his feet, the dagger that Hollingsby had torn from her hand earlier was in his fist as he charged Brace.
Time stopped. She saw every line on Brace’s face, and saw, too, the love he had for her, while her uncle charged toward them, his arm upraised and ready to strike. “No!” she screamed.
She tried to push Brace out of the way, willing her strength to hold as she forced Brace sideways. Before she could move him, the shattering explosion of a musket ripped through the chamber. Carl Sorrel froze, his eyes widening in disbelief. He shook his head slowly, denying what had happened. The dagger fell from his hand, his eyes glazed over, and he dropped lifeless to the floor.
Brace turned to Will who was lowering the musket.
Then Elyse was in Brace’s arms, feeling his strength, his life, and his love. She stared at his face, taking in every line, every plane, and every inch of his face, and knew they would be together, always.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for taking the time to read Silver Moon. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated.
Thank you,
Monica Barrie
Click here to review Silver Moon
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Monica Barrie is a multi-published author of contemporary and historical romances. She is also geriatric social worker, wife, and mother. She lives in New York with her husband
David Wind
, a multi published author himself.
Monica is also re-releasing many of her Contemporary and Historical romance novels.
~~~~
For more information about Monica Barrie, please visit
www.monicabarrie.com
Currently Available Novels
Historical Romances
Silver Moon
Coming Soon
Turquoise Sky
Available Contemporary Romances
Placing a small, booted foot into the leather stirrup, Lara Dowley grasped the pommel of the saddle and swung her light body up. Pausing birdlike above the ground, Lara’s ice-blue eyes surveyed the land. The golden morning sun flowed down and across the lush green valley, sitting like an oasis surrounded by almost barren terrain. With a slight flaring of her nostrils, Lara picked up the scent of pine, sage, juniper, and wildflower. Her sigh of pleasure spoke more than words, as she began to complete her upward movement.
“Lara!” came her stepfather’s loud bellow.
With a tinge of apprehension, Lara brought her slim body back to the ground. She had hoped to be gone before he’d finished his breakfast. She turned to him, certain of what was about to happen.
“How often must I tell you that a lady does not dress like that?” Martin Dowley admonished when he completed his walk from the covered veranda of the too-large house. Although only a few hundred feet from the stables, he was breathing hard and sweating. Martin Dowley was fifty-two, with a balding pate covered by a succession of different hats. His face had a mean look, and his body shape was more that of an egg than a man.
“Father, I’m going for a ride, not a social,” Lara reminded him. Seeing the hardening set of his small mouth and the narrowing of his dark eyes, Lara reacted angrily. “I am not your property!” she spat.
“In that you are wrong, young lady. You most certainly are my property. You are bought and paid for, and I have the papers to prove it,” Dowley replied with a grotesque smile. “Now, damn it, girl, you’ll do exactly what I tell you. Look at yourself. Wearing buckskins and a man’s shirt. You should be ashamed! I am!”
“Am I to ride through the sage with a dress and petticoats?” Lara asked sarcastically, fighting back the tears his taunting reminder of her adoption summoned.
“No. You may take the carriage, or ride our property like a woman, with a woman’s saddle and a proper riding dress. You’re indecent the way you are.”
“Indecent? I’m indecent?” Lara cried her incredulous reaction to her father’s hurting words. “At least all I do is ride in pants. I don’t force women to travel across the country to chase my ambitions. I don’t push people beyond their capabilities. I don’t drive people to their deaths.” Lara’s twenty-year-old eyes turned cold, her entire frame tensing with anger.
Suddenly, Lara realized just how far she had overstepped her bounds. Watching her father’s face turn a dark shade of red, she mounted the roan mare and, using her heels, commanded the horse to move.
“Never—never speak to me like that!” Martin Dowley ran after the burgundy-haired woman. “Come back here this minute!”
Ignoring his shouts, Lara forced the mare to a gallop in an effort to put her father, and their home, behind her. Through the rich green valley, and then over the small hills that led toward the Wind River, Lara sped to freedom from prying eyes. The breeze tossed the heavy mass of her hair about as her buckskin-covered legs molded to the horse’s flanks.
The smooth movements of the roan’s muscles, rippling against her thighs gave Lara a sense of oneness with the large animal. She tried to block out all thought as she concentrated on the horse’s gait, the wind in her face, and the warm sun above her.
Lara’s mind was in a rage; her heart beat too fast. The rising heat of the day and the heat of her anger made the young woman perspire freely. Rivulets of moisture ran between the valley of her breasts, and the cooling effect of the perspiration beading on her brow, was cooling as it mixed with the rushing air.
“Father!” Lara spat out the word as if it were a curse. She couldn’t help the anger and the sadness that gripped her and spun her thoughts in a circle, reminding her of how much she wished she had known her real father and not this fat obscenity of a stepfather, who demanded so much but was unwilling to give anything in return. Not the miserable man who had forced her to leave Pennsylvania; to leave her friends, and to leave the man she had planned to marry.
Lara’s light blue eyes misted as she thought about Jason Grumman. They had grown up together. The Grumman family, who were Quakers, had owned a fine business and a house near her own. Jason and Lara had pledged an undying love for each other when she was forced to move west. She made him promise to wait for her. One way or another, they would be reunited.
Was it only yesterday that the letter came? It seemed like years to her. She had slept fitfully last night, dreaming of Jason, and of what she had read in the letter. Amelia Forman, her friend in Philadelphia, wrote to her with the worst news Lara had received since arriving in the Idaho territories. Jason Grumman had married another. Although she spent a miserable night, when the sun rose, the pain of his treachery dimmed, and the reality of her situation entered Lara’s thoughts. Now she was alone, forced to face her future as a grown woman.
As she dressed, Lara looked at the soft globe of the rising sun with a new sense of understanding and forgave Jason. Perhaps she had always known that he would not come for her because he could not leave his family.
How she hated Martin Dowley! How she despised the man who forced her to give up every dream she had ever built. Lara loathed her stepfather even more for making her realize Jason’s weakness. Just thinking of Martin Dowley made her angrier.
As the horse raced along, the lush and green foliage became sparse. The changing land was the warning signal for Lara to turn back from the untamed wilderness of the Wind River Mountains, but it went unnoticed by her misted eyes and enraged mind as she continued her own inward journey.
Lara had never known her natural father. He’d died two months before she was born. Eleven months after Lara’s birth, her mother had married Martin Dowley. Kristen Fairwald had agreed to this marriage because she believed she and her baby daughter needed the protection and security of a man of Martin Dowley’s stature. A rich and seemingly noble man.
That rich and noble man turned her mother’s life into a living hell. He was demanding, self-seeking, and bigoted. Martin Dowley had treated her mother, and Lara, like chattel, to be used when deemed necessary and forgotten until needed again. Dowley had killed his wife. Not physically, but through years of mental torture, blaming the loss of his fortune on her. Then the unanswered question of how he had regained his wealth, combined with their move to the Idaho territory, had brought Kristen Fairwald to death’s door. The trip was hard, even for people such as them, who had the means to afford more comfort.
Lara had watched her mother deteriorate every day of the trip, with each mile the wagons traveled. During the last days of her mother’s life, Lara held her, soothing her and pressing her close against herself. In the end, Kristen died looking into the blue eyes of her daughter. Kristen smiled and raised her hand to stroke Lara’s cheek.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry I have to leave you. I can’t stay any longer, I just can’t. ...”
Lara cried as she pressed her mother’s still warm cheek against her own, rocking the dead woman like a newborn infant. Lara didn’t know when the wagons stopped for the night. When Dowley found them, he pulled her away from her mother and buried Kristen without the smallest of prayers on his lips. The next day, he acted as though nothing had happened, and Lara heard the whispers from the rest of the people in their wagon train. They respected his strength in going on, in acting as the leader of the group. Lara wanted to tell them that it wasn’t strength. Martin Dowley had only one care, one love. Himself. From that point in her life, Lara’s hatred intensified, and burned within her chest.
The harsh bellows of the roan mare’s ragged, its forced breathing snapping Lara’s mind to the present. Flecks of foam flew back at her from the horse’s sweating neck. Dismissing the mist veiling her eyes, Lara glanced around. Gently loosening the grip of her legs, she drew back the reins. Lara was entering a deep ravine, and her whereabouts were a mystery to her. Looking over her shoulder, she sighted a familiar landmark: a bold, barefaced mountain that signaled the start of the territory of the Shoshone Indians.
The mare began to snort and prance about. Suddenly, the roan reared, throwing an unprepared Lara from its back. Everything shifted before her eyes as she flew from the saddle. She saw the mare’s head and fear-filled eyes, a swirling of blue and white sky, the yellow ball of the sun. Landing on her back, Lara felt one brief instant of relief. Then her head slammed against a jutting rock and she knew only blackness.
~~~~
The rifle was a dead weight strapped across his back as he climbed another outcrop of rock. Kael stopped to wipe away sweat dripping into his eyes. He moved fast when he spotted another splash of red against the gray-brown rock.
“Close.” When he crested the large outcropping, Kael froze. As silent as a fish swimming underwater, he pulled the rifle over his shoulder and head. The movement took an eternity as his muscles tensed, but his eyes never wavered from the tawny golden form of the crouched mountain lion on the ledge below him.
Kael leveled the rifle into position, and aimed at the cat. Even so, he could not help but admire the feline and mighty beauty of the wounded animal. The cougar’s muscles corded with tension and power; the cat’s breathing was undiscernible, betraying nothing of its pain. Kael stiffened when the animal’s tail twitched, and then the cat lowered its belly against the rocky perch.
The cougar held perfectly still, yet was ready to spring. A new sound reached Kael’s ears, that of a horse scenting danger and venting its fears. Kael knew he had little time. He fired just as the great cat leapt. Cougar and bullet collided in midair with a whining, screaming impact. The beast’s leap continued, but Kael knew he’d hit his mark. At the end of the cat’s arc would be its death.
Without thinking of anything else, and carrying the rifle in one hand, he descended the rocky terrain. When he reached the animal’s perch, Kael Treemont froze. The tableau that unfolded below held him transfixed.
The horse he’d heard, a roan mare, stood trembling; its forelegs pawed at the ground. The dead cougar lay eight feet in front of the mare: Behind the horse, a figure in buckskins lay motionless.
He jumped down from the rocks and the mare snorted in fear again. Walking toward it, Kael spoke to the horse. With a steady flow of soft words, Kael reached the mare and caught the reins. He walked the horse to the side of the ravine and secured the mare to a leathery brown vine. Only then did he turn to the unconscious figure on the ground.
Walking toward the sprawled body, Kael’s first sight was of long, burgundy hair splayed out beneath the head. When he got closer, his breath caught in his chest as he noticed the clear, bronzed skin of a young woman’s face, and the delicate line of her mouth. Kael knelt beside her, lifting her head to examine her scalp for wounds. The mixed scents of horse and soap assailed his nostrils as his fingers probed beneath her hair. He lowered the woman’s head, having found no injury other than a now rising lump. He studied her, watching the even rise and fall of her chest.
Gazing at her, Kael knew he was looking at one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Her peach-colored lips, small, straight nose, and well-defined cheekbones blended into a picture of soft beauty that ensnared him. Her breathing changed, and she began to stir. A small pink tongue licked at dry lips; her eyelids fluttered. When they opened, revealing blue eyes the color of a mountain lake, Kael Treemont smiled.
Opening her eyes, Lara saw an unfocused shadow hovering over her. As her vision cleared, she made out the leering face of a scruffy, hatted man. Trapper, her mind screamed. Instantly, Lara realized her peril. She’d strayed far from the quasi-civilized area of her home, and a wandering trapper had found her. Summoning all her strength, she began to fight the inevitable.
Hitting the man with balled fists, kicking out and upward with her small, booted feet, Lara Dowley struggled against what she knew would be a horrible fate. Before she could do more than land several futile blows, the man pulled her into an iron like grip, his arms crushing her to him, stopping all resistance. Her chest heaved with exertion as her breasts pressed flat against the stranger’s torso. Desperate, Lara opened her mouth, trying to find his neck in order to bite the vulnerable skin. Before she could clamp down on his neck, he grabbed a handful of hair and yanked her head back.
“Stop fighting! Stop fighting and I’ll let you go,” he ordered through clenched teeth.
For some reason, the man’s voice, not his words, made her believe him. Her mouth was still open, ready to bite his neck, her eyes fixed on the vein pulsing above the corded muscles of his neck. The stranger’s iron hold lightened, and she pulled her head back to stare into his fiery eyes. They were only inches from her face and Lara was able to see floating islands of brown and gold in an amber sea. She relaxed her body. As she did, his arm loosened on her back, and his fingers released her hair.
Lara’s gaze held his for a long moment as she studied him. He stood and backed away. Before she could stand, his hand went out and one long finger pointed. Her eyes traveled the length of his arm, following the finger’s aim. Not far from her was the body of a dead mountain lion.
“I’ll accept your apology now.”
Lara’s head whipped back to face him, instantly taking in the relaxed smile on his lips and the laughter in his eyes. “My apology? For not letting you maul me?” she asked, sarcasm rife in her words. When she stood, she eyed him carefully. “I’m sorry. Please accept my apology, thank you.”
