Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (41 page)

      
Would that be so awful?
his inner voice asked. He considered it and realized that there had been a time—most of his life, in fact—when he would never have even conceived such a thought, much less turned it over in his mind. Time. That was the key. He needed time to think, time away from Joss and she from him, so they both could deal with all the roiling emotions jumbled up inside them. And, too, he needed time to get used to the idea of her sneaking into his bed in London and then never telling him that she had done it. She had made a fool out of him and it still rankled. How Monty and Drum would laugh if ever they learned of it! They never would from him—or Joss, or by heaven he
would
throttle her!

      
With the dawn, Alex slipped from the house and went down to the river for a brisk swim to clear the cobwebs from his mind. Usually there was a large gathering of men at the spot, for all Muskogee bathed each day religiously. But it was barely light and the preceding evening everyone had feasted and danced until quite late. He had the water to himself—until a runner from Talisi approached him with the news that an American king's man had brought many fire guns and shot to the Upper Creek town. He was urging the people to follow Peter McQueen, the Red Stick war leader who had accompanied him.

      
Alex dressed quickly and went to raise his father. Devon was awake, sitting with Barbara in their quarters, sipping hot coffee. They made an intimate tableau and for an instant Alex wondered what it might be like if he and Joss settled into such domestic bliss. The idea was swiftly dismissed as they discussed the alarming news.

      
"This American 'king's man' has to be Wilbur Kent," Alex said.

      
"Now that we know he's in Talisi, we may be able to stop him," Dev replied. "Tall Crane and Pig Sticker should be able to convince enough others to ride with us."

      
A hastily convened council decided to send a dozen warriors with Dev and Alex. They were ready to depart within the hour. As Alex swung up on his horse, Barbara approached him after a fond farewell kiss with her husband. "Have you told Jocelyn good-bye?" she called out.

      
Alex cursed beneath his breath, wheeling the big gelding around. "There is no time, Mama. Tell her I'll return when this is over."

      
"But she'll worry, Alex. Besides, after last night, don't you wish to give her your love before riding away?" she asked with a knowing look in her eyes.

      
Damn, she was positively gloating...as if...as if she'd known the true situation all along. Had Joss confessed everything? Surely not. "You may do so for me, Mama," he said stiffly, kicking his horse into a trot and heading for the road as if the hounds of hell pursued him.

      
Barbara sighed in aggravation. What had gone wrong now?

* * * *

      
Although she knew that evasive replies frustrated her mother-in-law, Joss was loathe to explain the argument she and Alex had had the preceding night—even if she understood its cause, which she did not. Nor did she wish to describe the wild intimacies before it.

      
Feeling decidedly blue deviled, Joss spent the following day in her quarters, where the beautifully decked out bridal bower only served as a reminder of all that was not right between her and her absent husband. She browsed through several of the books Charity had left her, but could concentrate on nothing. Later in the day she decided to go for a walk.

      
Summoning Poc, without whom she never left the village, she strolled down by the river, admiring the deep lustiness of the woods filled with magnificent stands of hickory, oak and walnut trees, as well as a wide variety of colorful wildflowers that she had never seen before. Nature had lavished a great bounty on this raw new land. Wild blackberries glistened, fat in the afternoon sun, and peach trees groaned under the burden of their sweet juicy harvest.

      
"Now that I'm growing accustomed to it, I must confess I'm learning to appreciate the beauty here," she murmured to Poc as he dashed across the grass after a butterfly, then came trotting back to her side.

      
"That is a good beginning," a soft voice said, seeming to float out on the warm afternoon breeze. Then Tall Crane materialized from behind a thick stand of arrowwood bushes. He smiled courteously, his bow as courtly as any London gentleman's, if not for the fact he was dressed in buckskins and blankets with roached hair and a tatooed body.

      
Joss was still embarrassed over her foolish gaffe with him. Yet a part of her continued to feel it had not been unreasonable to admonish a man who gave every appearance of being wretchedly indisposed from overindulgence. Black Drink indeed! The stuff was a vile, hideous emetic concoction, not a religious rite at all, in her opinion.

      
Nevertheless she returned the old man's smile and greeted him politely as he fell in step beside her. His name fit him well for he was tall and thin, long of limb with a stringy toughness. His face had a great beak of a nose and was lined and creased far more than that of his sister. Poc seemed to like him well enough, thumping his tail in welcome.

      
"You are becoming accustomed to the place. You will become accustomed to the people as well. In time our ways will not seem so strange or foolish to you."

      
Her cheeks blazed. It was as if he could read her mind, a disconcerting thought indeed. "Oh, I did not intend to offend you—I'm afraid that my upbringing at times shows the worst of me. My father was a Methodist minister."

      
"That would explain much," Tall Crane replied gravely with just a faint hint of humor in his voice. “Tell me about your family, Jocelyn."

      
"There isn't much to tell really. My mother died when I was young and Papa raised me. His mission was to the poor in London's slums." She looked at him questioningly.

      
He nodded in understanding. "I have read about your great city," he replied.

      
An enigma, just as his sister was. Educated people who chose to live as aboriginals. But then perhaps their father's white blood was not sufficient for them to gain acceptance into colonial society. Joss remembered the pain in Charity's voice.
I was not welcome in Savannah
. Joss sketched her childhood and her work among the poor, glossing over how she and Alex had met and wed. Tall Crane was an attentive listener, seeming to digest each word thoughtfully.

      
They walked a bit farther in silence when he said, "You love my nephew and your heart is good."

      
"Even if I am an English outsider who's afraid of horses, alligators and just about everything else in this new land?"

      
"Yes, even us ... although I do not think you are so frightened as you were when you arrived."

      
"Did I show it so much?" she asked, feeling awful to have insulted Alex's family.

      
He nodded and the smile softened his austere features even more. "All this is strange to you. Our ways are different, sometimes primitive and superstitious to white eyes." When she started to protest he raised his hand and said, "Remember, I am half white, too, so I have been able to look at each side of my family with the other's eyes."

      
"Yet you chose to live here and marry a Muskogee woman."

      
"Yes, unlike my sister. Her husband Alastair Blackthorne was a good man. We each followed our hearts...as did Golden Eagle when he chose Dawn Woman. I did not approve of their love when first my nephew brought the Lady Barbara here."

      
Joss was taken aback by the confession. "But she is greatly beloved by your people now."

      
He smiled. "Yes. I feared her high birth and Devon's mixed blood would cause them both great pain if they wed, but they proved me wrong and I am glad of it. Here she is the Dawn Woman whose golden goodness is welcome as the sunrise itself. She won her place among us because she loved her husband so greatly that all could see it."

      
"How can I do that, Tall Crane? I love Alex with all my heart yet I cannot even convince him of it." The words simply tumbled out of their own volition. Joss was taken aback at how easily the old man had insinuated himself into her confidence.

      
"Golden Eagle was much like his son in that. He fought against loving, thinking he was overreaching, but in the end he accepted what was meant to be."

      
It seemed to Joss that her position with Alex was quite the reverse—she was the one overreaching for her beautiful golden rogue. "And you believe Alex and I are also...meant to be?" Her voice was filled with doubt, yet tinged with hope as well.

      
"I know it is so here," he said, raising one fist to thump it against his heart. "But you must teach your man this thing."

      
She waited patiently.

      
Seeming to change the subject he said, "Charity teaches

the Muskogee children to read, write and cipher so they may deal intelligently with the whites. You did say you were a teacher of the disadvantaged across the great ocean. Here, our people are equally in need..."

      
He let the suggestion trail off. Joss considered, remembering the curious boys to whom she'd given her spectacles and the disastrous aftermath. "Do you suppose all the elders would be happy with me teaching their children?" she asked hesitantly.

      
"Not all, but then, those who follow Turtle Snake do not bring their children to my sister's school."

      
He left it up to her. She had been bored and restless since they set sail from England, having nothing useful to do, not fitting in anywhere, feeling more and more alienated from Alex. Tall Crane was offering her an opportunity to find her own way here in Alex's country...if she possessed the courage to seize the chance. 'Tonight at supper I shall ask Grandmother Charity if I may help her," she said.

      
Tall Crane nodded. "I said that your heart was good."

* * * *

      
Peter McQueen cursed in a mixture of Muskogee and English as he squatted before the crackling campfire deep in the hilly ravines of the Tallapoosa River country. Wilbur Kent stood back in the shadows until the savage with whom McQueen had been conferring left, then sauntered forward. "I take it matters are not going well," he said tightly, swatting at a mosquito that feasted on his neck.

      
"It be them accursed Blackthornes! Old Devon and his whelp. Half the towns reject the Red Sticks to sit around the fires and talk peace. Old women. Faugh!" He spat into the fire in disgust.

      
Kent looked down at the filthy half-caste who sat tamping down a pipe filled with a noisome mixture of tobacco and foul-smelling dried weeds. McQueen's blunt stubby hands were callused and grimy with blackened broken nails. His hair was long and hung stiffly, dressed with bear grease, which repelled the mosquitoes that tormented Kent but also unfortunately repelled anyone who stood within twenty feet of McQueen.

      
"Blackthorne has become much more of a hindrance than I'd believed possible. Even Weatherford is considering his cautions and warnings. We must deal with him and the son," Kent said, stroking his chin thoughtfully as he neared the fire, careful to remain upwind of his companion.

      
McQueen pulled a wicked-looking tomahawk stained with gore from his belt. "I will kill them."

      
'That might be more difficult than you imagine," Kent replied, rubbing his head where he still bore a scar given him by Alex Blackthorne in a London back alley. He had deduced who his assailant was only after Cybill had come to secure his release from prison. He would settle matters with the younger Blackthorne another time. Now the critical issue was Golden Eagle.

      
"My warriors will lie in wait for them when they return to Coweta," McQueen said.

      
"No. Even if you succeeded, you would only make martyrs of them. I have a better plan."

      
McQueen exhaled a thick cloud of smoke and squinted his cold black eyes. He knew the American was cunning. "What?"

      
"His wife is English, a noblewoman. She is currently in Coweta, visiting her Muskogee family."

      
"Fine yellow hair to decorate my scalp pole," McQueen replied, grinning.

      
"Not so quickly. We will not kill her, only take her prisoner and fetch her down to Mobile. Then let the Blackthornes follow her scent into an English stronghold..."

      
An unholy light glowed in McQueen's eyes as he nodded in understanding.

* * * *

"Sun Fox returns. I have heard the runners cry the message. If you hurry"—Panther Woman gestured to a path leading into the woods—"you will be able to greet him privately."

      
Joss was not disposed to trust Panther Woman, who was not only Turtle Snake's wife but the beauteous Water Lily's mother. "Are not his father and the other warriors with him?" she asked suspiciously.

      
Panther Woman shook her head, smiling beguilingly. "He has stopped by the river to swim. See, here the others arrive without him now."

      
Joss could see Devon and his Muskogee warriors surrounded by an excited crowd of people. Alex was not with them. Perhaps this was a golden opportunity. Visions of him alone, naked in the water, left her mouth dry with nervous excitement. She nodded to the older woman. "I thank you, Panther Woman."