It could not be. She could plainly see this man was Indian. A native American Indian. Someone who could mean nothing to her.
She stared up at him then, in silent challenge, if only to purge this sensation from her consciousness. Yet, all the while, her touch upon his arm never relinquished its hold.
His eyes were black, she noted, the darkest eyes she had ever seen, and they revealed nothing.
Suddenly, his look turned sardonic, and he broke eye contact with her, pulling his arm back, out and away from her grasp.
He turned from her then, suddenly and without warning. He began walking away from her at a steady gait, following on the footfalls of the other men. The Indian was treading, it would appear, toward the main entrance of the fort.
Katrina stood still for several moments, just watching him, until she suddenly realized what he was doing. This man—this mere Indian—was defying her. She had made demands of him; he had told her nothing. Nothing!
Somehow this fact disturbed her more than any other detail she had observed about him.
Blast!
She had to try to detain him. She took one step forward, and called out, “It was you who demanded to speak to me alone, Indian.”
No response, not even a catch in his stride.
“If you wish to talk to me, do it now, for I will not see you once we are in the fort.”
The man didn’t turn around, nor did he say or do anything further, except to present her with the view of his backside as he continued to walk away.
She should have been appalled by the man’s bad manners and by his dress, or rather, its lack thereof. In truth, she was…almost.
She watched him, his lean, sculpted figure an unusually strange and exciting sight. And then she saw it, the man’s breechcloth fell apart from the outline of his leggings now and again, presenting her with an occasional view of a portion of hard, muscular buttocks.
Katrina was almost struck dumb with the observation. Never, not once in her life, had she ever witnessed so much of a man’s anatomy.
How utterly heathen. How primitive.
She didn’t, however, glance away. “I won’t meet with you,” she announced again. “And that’s my final word on the subject.”
Her challenge had no effect on the Indian’s actions.
Katrina was fuming. She felt like shouting at the man; she felt like pummeling him, but she refused to reduce herself to a show of temper.
She did, however, stamp her foot.
The insolent barbarian. And to think she had been admiring his looks.
Humph!
She picked up the front of her skirt, her white petticoats contrasting oddly with the brown of the earth beneath her feet.
She would follow that Indian back into the fort. Not because she had to, she reminded herself. After all,
she
was residing within the walls of the fort.
She
had a right to be there. This Indian did not.
Oh, but she didn’t like this. It was she who should be the person putting forth demands. It was she, not the Indian, who was the civilized one here, the more intelligent one.
So why was she the one left staring after him?
Well, it made no difference. There was at least one thing she would do as soon as she met with this man: She would ensure he would hear her opinions of him and his insolence—that is,
if
she met with him.
She wasn’t certain at this moment that she would even permit the Indian an interview. There must be some other way of soliciting news of her uncle.
The Indian turned around at that exact moment, catching her staring at him, and goodness, but it looked as though he smiled at her. Did he know her thoughts? Could he see her frustration? Worse yet, had he felt her gaze upon that more intimate portion of his anatomy?
Oh, what a wicked, wicked man!
How dare he!
She threw back her head and thrust out her chin. Ah, but it would please her to tell this Indian what she thought of him…and soon!
Make no mistake.
White Eagle turned his back on the woman and walked away from her, a grin tugging up the corners of his mouth.
In truth, he had enjoyed the confrontation with Shines Like Moonlight…but he would never let her know it. Not when she had dared to try to command him, a Blackfoot warrior. Such was the height of bad manners.
Yet
,
he could appreciate her spirit, her courage in confronting him when even the men who had surrounded her had shied away from him. Too, he acknowledged her unusual beauty; in truth, she had overwhelmed him with the allure of her feminine charm, more pleasing in close proximity than from a distance. He could still smell the sweet fragrance of her, hear the silvery timbre of her voice, and if it hadn’t been for her lack of manners…
Certainly, she was fairer than he’d anticipated she would be, but that wasn’t what bothered him about her.
No, it was her touch, the simple graze of her hand upon his arm. With that touch…
He grimaced. And he wondered if she knew that she had stirred something to life within him, something sweet, something carnal, something completely sexual.
It was one of the reasons he had turned his back on her—that, and her insolence.
Haiya.
He should have more control. He was not some young boy, unable to control the physical urges of his body, and yet, he could, even now, feel the result of her effect on him, down there, in the junction between his legs. It was good that he had left her before his physical reaction to her became more pronounced.
Did she remember him?
A picture flashed in his mind, an image of a child, frightened and crying, clinging to him as he had clung to the crest of a hill, both he and the child watching the gushing floodwaters rush past them, its danger only a short distance away. He had almost lost her in those waters.
He remembered again that he had clasped her to him then, whispering to her, giving her as much comfort as he was able, until long after the danger had passed.
But that had been much too long ago. They had both been different people then, children.
That the child in her had grown up was evident. That she had reached adulthood without the guidance of a mother or a father to point out the necessity of courtesy and good manners was even more conspicuous.
Would she remember him given more time?
White Eagle thought back to the world he had known so long ago, to the people he had befriended, to a little white girl he had admired, a girl with yellowish gold hair, to the child’s father, her mother.
They had perished, her parents. The girl had barely survived, and her father’s brother had sent her away long ago.
So, her uncle had been right about her. The woman that he had met today was spoiled, a person completely devoid of maidenly gentleness. She spoke when not asked, demanded when a man’s mind was already settled; in truth, her spirit towered over the white men who had accompanied her.
Did she rise above these men because she had bullied them into submission with the same womanly harping and angry tongue that she had shown to him? Or was she merely stronger-willed than they?
Whatever the reason, White Eagle despaired of the intervening years since he had last seen her.
If he reminded her of it, would she remember?
It was doubtful. She had been before the age when a child comes into its senses, and he had been no more than a young boy. He’d kept a lonely girl company during those times when her father and uncle had journeyed to his tribe on trading excursions.
If he told her what he knew of her, of her family, would any good come from it?
He did not think so. This person he had observed today had been as someone alien to him, certainly not the girl he had remembered…had once known.
In truth, he had caught her looking upon him with not only a womanly sort of attention, but with contempt, the same sort of foreign attitude that White Eagle had witnessed upon the countenance of other white men.
He didn’t like it.
No, it was better that he keep what he knew of her to himself. It was apparent she did not recall her life before the white man’s world, and he was certain she would not care to hear what he had to say to her.
So be it.
He entered the fort, taking his place amongst his friends. Good Dancer’s wife had already started setting up their camping lodges in the area surrounding the fort’s flagpole. One for himself and Night Thunder, the other for herself and her husband, Good Dancer. That Good Dancer’s new wife had demanded to accompany them on their journey did not bother White Eagle, nor did it seem strange to him.
The young couple had just been married, after an unusually long courtship. Of course they would want to be together now. Such was to be understood. Such were the ways of married people.
Besides, he’d wanted a woman along to keep Shines Like Moonlight company and to provide her with a chaperone.
White Eagle grimaced as he adjusted his breechcloth, certain Shines Like Moonlight would need that chaperone.
He glanced around him, at his place within the fort. He had noticed, when he had first come here, that several half-breed hunters resided within the tepees around the flagpole. This seemed only right to White Eagle; that these half-white, half-Indian men chose to live not in the square, wooden houses of the white man, but rather in the more comfortable lodges of his own people.
At least this is how it appeared to White Eagle.
He could not know, nor would he understand that to some within the fort, the mixed-bloods were not on an equal footing with the more European breed of men, that such would not be allowed the right to live in the square, wooden houses.
And so, not knowing, White Eagle settled down, content for the moment, beginning to initiate the necessary chores needed for the return journey to Fort McKenzie, passing the time fashioning arrowheads, making a new shield and manufacturing a new spear.
He was certain that Shines Like Moonlight would delay a meeting with him for as long as she was able.
This didn’t bother him. Why should it? Time was not an enemy to him, and White Eagle was full-blooded Indian; he was a patient man.
He smiled. Perhaps here was something else he could admire about this woman: She had a stubborn strength of character. And this was good.
She would not be one to come a cropper in an emergency. Such people were few. Such people were valuable.
He shrugged. Whatever the case, his next few days within this fort promised to be far from dull.
Chapter Five
“Miss Wellington, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I—”
“You are not. I can see that for myself.”
“Now, Rebecca, I—”
“There has been something wrong these past few days. I’ve noticed something odd about you since we first arrived here
.”
“Please, Rebecca, I—”
“I don’t carry tales, miss. I know that some servants do, but I can assure you that I have never been one to repeat a story told to me and I—”
“It’s not that, Rebecca, it’s only…” Katrina’s voice trailed away. What could she say? That a lifetime of dealing with servants, with their censure of her, their habit of gossiping at the least occurrence, made her reluctant to speak?
She glanced up at Rebecca now, through the looking glass on her vanity. It was late morning and, having just awakened, Rebecca was seeing to the task of Katrina’s morning toilet.
“It has to do with that Indian, doesn’t it, miss?”
“What?”
“I saw the way he looked at you that first day when the steamship came to the fort. And I—”
“An Indian, Rebecca? Really, I—”
“I know what I saw.”
Katrina sighed. “Yes,” she said, “I suppose that you do. Still, it’s neither the Indian, nor the way he looked at me that is bothering me, Rebecca.”
“Is it not?”
“No, it’s…it’s my uncle.”
“Your uncle, miss?”
“Yes.”
“Has he died?”
“No.”
“Taken ill?”
“No.”
“Been taken captive?”
“No.” Katrina grimaced. “No, none of those, although sometimes I…”
“I truly would do no more than listen, mistress.”
“I…” Katrina sighed. “No, my uncle has simply failed to meet me here. He was supposed to welcome me, that is, but instead of doing so, he has sent Indian guides in his place.”
“That was kind of him.”
“Kind?” Katrina’s glance flew upward to meet with her maid’s in the looking glass. “My uncle is hardly kind. Not when the man is demanding that my fiancé travel into the wilderness to meet him in an even wilder and more foreign place than this.”
“Excuse me, mistress, I didn’t know.”
“Indians,” Katrina wailed. “He sent Indians here to escort an English marquess…a marquess. My uncle could not have insulted me more had he sent the very devil.”
Rebecca hesitated in the task of pushing a brush through her mistress’s hair. She said, “But Miss Wellington, perhaps these Indians were the only people your uncle could trust with the task.