Maverick Heart Read online

  The grin was back, but his eyes were wary, conceding she had the power to devastate his hopes. “This morning, actually. At breakfast.”

  “That couldn’t have been more than an hour ago.”

  “More like half an hour,” he admitted.

  Apparently Rushland didn’t look before he leapt any more than she did. But crossing an ocean was a pretty big leap, even for her. “You expect me to go with you to America?”

  He sobered. In fact, she had never seen him look more serious in his life. Her heart began thumping a little harder. She had always thought of herself as an adventuresome person, but it was slowly dawning on her that she had no desire to leave her family and go so far away.

  “Lord Talbot, I—”

  He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted her face up to his. Her breath snagged in her throat.

  “I love you very much. Please don’t say no.”

  She swallowed, somehow, but had no idea where to go from there. She felt tears sting her nose as he tucked the persistently errant curl behind her shoulder.

  “I can’t promise much in the way of worldly goods,” he admitted. “At least, not at first. I can and will promise to do my utmost to make you happy.” His thumb caressed her cheek. “The only question is, do you love me?”

  “Of c-course I l-love you,” she replied quickly, stuttering a little at the misrepresentation of her feelings. She loved him as a friend, as a fellow mischiefmaker, as a rebel every bit as opposed to authority as she was. She didn’t love him as a woman should love the man she was pledged to marry. “I—”

  “Take your hands off my daughter.”

  The duke stood in the doorway, the duchess beside him, her hand curled through his arm, both of them looking terribly regal.

  Rushland’s hand came away quickly and clenched into a fist at his side. He nodded to her father, but there was nothing deferential in the gesture. “Your Grace.”

  “This interview is at an end,” the duke said.

  “But Father—”

  “Winnifred, this matter is best left between the gentleman and me.”

  Freddy took the single step necessary to put her at Rushland’s side and slipped her arm through his in an imitation of her mother’s pose. “Since the gentleman has asked me to become his wife, I think this concerns both of us, Father.”

  “Winnifred,” her mother warned. “The Duke of Worth’s only daughter wouldn’t dare do something so stupidly impulsive as to engage herself to this … this nothing!”

  Maybe if her mother hadn’t used that precise word, maybe if Freddy hadn’t glanced at Rushland at that precise moment and seen the flash of wounded pride, maybe things would have turned out differently.

  “Oh, I would dare, Mother,” she said in a brittle voice. “I’d dare a great deal more. Lord Talbot and I intend to be married as soon as possible and sail for America, where we shall live on a ranch in the wilderness.”

  “I won’t allow it.” The duke was agitated enough to twist at the perfect curl of his mustache. “You’re only seventeen. There’s not a clergyman in England who’ll perform the nuptials without my consent.”

  “Then we’ll be married in America,” Freddy replied.

  Her mother faltered, leaning heavily against her father, and Freddy saw the tic in her father’s right eyelid that appeared whenever he was truly angry.

  “I forbid it,” the duke said. “Rushland, you will leave this house immediately.”

  “If he goes, Father, I go,” Freddy threatened.

  She waited for her mother to plead with her father for reason. But the duchess’s face remained as unsympathetic as the duke’s. And they wondered where she got her stubborn, independent streak.

  “You’ll be locked in your room, young lady, if that’s what it takes, until you come to your senses,” her father warned in a dire voice.

  “You can keep me locked up, but as soon as I can manage it, I’ll escape.” She turned to Rushland. “Don’t leave without me. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

  Rushland took one look at the duke’s choleric color, gave her a quick nod, and made as dignified an exit as any thwarted suitor could.

  Her father had locked her up, and she had proven as good as her word. That was how she had come to America as the fiancée of a man she didn’t love and had never intended to marry. At least she had managed to put off the wedding.

  Freddy had been meaning to tell Rushland for weeks that she couldn’t marry him, that she had only been proving to her parents that they couldn’t control her life. Somehow the right moment had never presented itself. Now they were both likely to die without her ever having said anything. She glanced over her shoulder to see how Rushland was faring. He was still holding on. Barely. “Don’t let go, Rand!”

  “Leave me,” he shouted. “Save yourself.”

  “Shut up and hang on,” she snapped back.

  Freddy was unprepared for the lasso that settled around her shoulders, equally startled when a quick jerk tore her out of the sidesaddle. She was falling before she could extend a hand to save herself.

  “Rand!” she cried in terror. “Raaaand!”

  “Oh, God! Fredd—”

  His voice ended abruptly, as though someone had clamped a hand over his mouth. Or clubbed him. Or cut his throat.

  All those thoughts raced through Freddy’s head in the seconds it took her to land—rather painfully—flat on her back. For a moment she lay stunned, aware of her fate, but unwilling to accept it.

  Her eyes widened as she spied the crowd of painted faces that quickly surrounded her on horseback. She would have gasped, but when she tried to breathe, breath wouldn’t come.

  The Indians seemed intent on terrifying her—and they were doing an exceedingly good job of it—screeching and whooping and waving their rifles. The noise was deafening, and though her mind filtered the sounds, she couldn’t make out a word of their guttural gibberish.

  Freddy searched for Rushland, but kept lowering her eyes because what she found was so … foreign. She had never seen so much naked male flesh. Actually, being gently raised, she had never seen any naked male flesh. The scene before her was rather overwhelming. She was aware of vivid impressions rather than individual men.

  Burnished copper skin. Flat male nipples. Broad, muscled chests. Good Lord! She could even see thighs and knees! Of course one knew men had them, but it was rather a revelation seeing them exposed—bony and slim, stout and thick. In other circumstances, she would have been fascinated. Unfortunately, she was too terrified to indulge her curiosity.

  Abruptly the noose around her shoulders tightened, and she was dragged to her feet.

  Despite the pain, she came up fighting, teeth bared, fingers curled into claws. “You’ll have to kill me before I’ll let you touch one hair on my head!”

  The Indians laughed and pointed.

  Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t think the situation was the least bit amusing. When a space opened between two horses, she darted toward it.

  The noose jerked her backward, and she landed hard on her bottom. She was on her feet in an instant, lunging for another space. Again the noose jerked, and she went tumbling. She rose again, and again a space miraculously appeared between the shoulders of two horses. But she knew their game now and didn’t choose to play.

  She halted where she was, panting, trembling like a wild animal that knows it is trapped. Her hat was long gone, but someone grabbed at the net that still covered her hair. As she lurched sideways, it tore free, and her hair spilled in silken waves down her back all the way to her waist.

  She heard the hissed-in breaths, the utter silence that followed as they stared at her auburn hair. She swallowed over the knot in her throat. She could see her fate written on their fascinated faces.

  She groaned, remembering what the teamster had said. Being female wouldn’t save her. They would take her scalp all the same. She waited stoically for the final blow to fall. She wouldn’t scream or beg the
m for mercy. They would see how an English gentlewoman, daughter of a duke and descended from the blood of kings, chose to die with her head up and her chin held high.

  “What are you called?”

  Freddy was startled to hear English spoken by a strange voice and whirled to find the source of it. She stared, confused by what she saw.

  Her captor’s eyes were black and inscrutable, but his nose was less flat, his lips less thin, and his forehead less high than those of the others. His skin was lighter, too, more golden than copper. He’s not Indian, she thought, and felt a thrill of relief run through her.

  Another look made her question that conclusion. His black hair was long and straight to his shoulders, held at his brow by a narrow strip of rawhide, and his face was painted in yellow stripes like that of the others. His chest and arms—virile sinew and bone—were bare. Her eyes skimmed down a wall of rippling muscle to the buckskin leggings that covered the rest of him. And saw his hand fisted around the rope that held her captive.

  Her glance flashed back to his face. “I’m Lady Winnifred Worth,” she answered him at last. And with all the dignity she could muster, demanded, “Who are you?”

  “I am called Hawk.”

  “Are you a white man?” she asked.

  His features hardened. “I am Sioux.”

  That wasn’t the answer she had been hoping for. “Then how did you learn to speak English?”

  “I went to the white man’s school.”

  But didn’t care much for the experience, she concluded from the disdainful look on his face. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “You are my prisoner.”

  She swallowed, unwilling to speculate on what that meant. “What about Rushland?” When the English-speaking Sioux frowned in confusion, she rephrased her question. “What happened to the man who was with me?”

  “He is dead.”

  She let out a howl and attacked.

  Freddy had the satisfaction of feeling her nails tear into Hawk’s skin before her wrists were gripped by iron hands and forced away. “You beast! You animal! Rushland never did a thing to harm you. Why did you have to kill him?”

  The Sioux held her at arm’s length until she was too exhausted to struggle any more. “You are strong. You will make a good wife.”

  “Wife?” she shrieked. She struggled frantically against his hold, but she felt like a butterfly whose wings were pinned by giant hands.

  “You belong to me now,” he told her. “You cannot escape.”

  Her chin snapped up defiantly. “This is ridiculous! You can’t own me! I insist you let me go.” She tried to free her wrists, and when she couldn’t, resorted to kicking at him with her calfskin half-boots. Her enormous riding skirt got in the way, telegraphing what she intended, so he was able to shift easily out of her reach.

  He snatched a handful of her hair and held on when she tried to jerk free. She yelped in pain and froze, panting with fright as she stared into his dark, fathomless eyes.

  “You will bear many fierce sons for me,” he said.

  She stared at him, disbelieving. Her heart thumped wildly as he began speaking to the others in Sioux. She tried to brace for whatever was coming, but her head was spinning, and she thought there was a very good chance she might faint. She ducked her head instinctively when one of the Indians loosened the rope and lifted it over her head. It took her a second to realize what was happening, but before she could run, Hawk grabbed her wrists and held them together while a second Indian twined a piece of rawhide around them several times.

  Then Hawk let her go.

  She waged a futile struggle against her bonds.

  “You will only hurt yourself,” he said, laying a hand on her wrists. “To fight now is useless. There is no escape.”

  She pulled free of his touch and glared at him. Tears threatened, but she gritted her teeth and forced them back. Somehow she was certain these Indians wouldn’t appreciate a fit of hysterics.

  Freddy wasn’t sure which feelings to acknowledge, there were so many bombarding her at once. You belong to me. She fought back the terror, the anger, the frustration at what those words implied. Imagine coming all the way to America to escape her parents’ restrictions, only to become the slave of some white savage!

  At least she was alive. Rushland was dead. And it was all her fault. She was the one who had urged Rand to leave the safety of the wagon and ride off across the prairie with her. Her chest ached unbearably with the weight of guilt and shame and grief.

  Freddy tried not to imagine how Rand’s mother would feel when she heard that her only son had been murdered by savages. Assuming Lady Talbot ever found out what had happened. Freddy couldn’t help wondering whether both her fate and Rand’s would remain a mystery never to be solved.

  An Indian spoke behind her, and Hawk answered in the same guttural tongue.

  “It seems your friend is not dead after all,” Hawk said in English.

  “What?” She blinked to clear the film of tears from her eyes. “Rushland’s alive?”

  “Two Bears only knocked him from the saddle. He has lost a lot of blood from the wound in his shoulder, but he is alive.”

  “You have to help him!” Without conscious thought she reached out to touch Hawk’s arm with her bound hands. She realized what she was doing too late. He recoiled as her fingers touched his skin.

  He stared at her with narrowed eyes but didn’t speak.

  She threaded her fingers into a knot in front of her. “Please, won’t you let me help my friend?”

  “Two Bears will care for him.”

  Without another word he settled her into the sidesaddle on her Thoroughbred, while one of the Indians stood nearby holding the reins.

  “Do not try to escape,” Hawk warned. “Or your friend will die.”

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  He ignored her, as though she were an animal on a leash to be tugged and pulled where he willed. She watched him mount a horse that wore a bridle but no saddle, by simply leaping onto the animal’s back. She had never seen anything so graceful. The Indian on the ground handed her reins to Hawk, and he led her away at the head of the small band of Sioux.

  She saw two Indian braves tying Rushland on his belly across his horse’s back. There was blood all over his saddle.

  She kneed her horse to draw even with Hawk. “You have to stop the bleeding, or Rushland will die.”

  Hawk spoke to the Indians in their foreign tongue, and one of them riffled through Rushland’s saddlebags until he found a linen shirt. He lifted the unconscious man slightly and stuffed the wadded up garment against his shoulder before tightening the ropes around him.

  “How can you be so cruel?” she demanded of Hawk. “He needs a doctor.”

  “We brought no medicine man with us. His wound will be tended when we reach our camp.”

  “Are we going to the reservation?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Isn’t that where the Sioux live?”

  “There are many who would rather hunt buffalo than take the cattle and corn the white man offers.”

  Freddy eyed the twenty or so Longhorn cattle the Indians were herding before them. “Those look like cattle to me.”

  “Ah, but those were stolen from our enemies, not given as charity to the poor,” he said.

  “Is that why the soldiers were chasing you?”

  “Among other reasons.”

  “They’ll come hunting for us. I’m certain Rushland’s mother will demand it.”

  “The buffalo wiped out all sign of our passing. They will never find us. They will give up and go home, as others have before them.”

  “You don’t know Lady Talbot,” Freddy said. “She’s like one of those terriers that grabs hold with its teeth and won’t let go no matter what you do.” Freddy eyed Hawk defiantly. “She’ll never give up till she finds us.”

  3

  Verity stared at Lieutenant Colonel William Travis
Peters with an unrelenting gaze. “I insist you go after them.”

  The commandant of Fort Laramie rearranged the papers on his Georgian desk—the only piece of furniture in the room not constructed from pine logs—one more time. “I’m afraid it’s impossible, Lady Talbot. If we had some idea which way they were headed, it would be different. The Wyoming Territory is a big place, and I don’t have the men to spare for a wild-goose chase.”

  Verity rose from the uncomfortable ladderback chair in front of the colonel’s desk. “Very well. I shall have to go hunting for them on my own.”

  The colonel had risen the instant she did and folded his hands behind his back, leaving her staring across his immense girth at a double row of brass buttons. “I’d have to advise against that, Lady Talbot. You have no idea what you’re dealing with here. The hostiles—excuse me—the non-treaty Sioux, that is, those Indians who didn’t sign the Treaty of 1868 agreeing to stay on a reservation, have no respect for human life. They’d as soon shoot a man as look at him. They’d do worse to a lady, believe me, ma’am.”

  “All the more reason why I need to begin searching for my son and his fiancée as soon as possible,” Verity said firmly. “I would appreciate it, Colonel Peters, if you would suggest someone who could lead my expedition.”

  The colonel sputtered. “But Lady Talbot, don’t you see how foolish—”

  “Very well, I’ll find someone myself.”

  A voice from the rear said, “I’ll do it.”

  Verity turned and saw Miles slouched in a chair at the back of the room, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee. How long had he been there? She hadn’t heard him enter, hadn’t heard him walk the short distance from the door to the pine-and-raw-hide chair in the corner. She glanced at the foot he had angled across his knee and realized why. He wasn’t wearing sturdy Wellingtons or Hussars or Hessians, but knee-high Indian moccasins.

  It dawned on her suddenly that this man, with whom she had once shared the intimate secrets of her body, was a stranger to her.