Proving Herself Page 17

  "I believe," he decided, "that I would finish this part." Lev­ering himself back off of her—all but where he straddled her—he began to unlace her camisole.

  She watched his hands drawing the ribbons from eyelets, then lifted her gaze to his face. He had such thick, dark lashes, what with his eyes half-closed like that. The move­ment of his chest showed that he was breathing more deeply than she'd guessed, especially since she still felt faint from lack of air.

  "And then ..." As with the bodice, he parted the camisole by gliding both hands down and outward, drawing them right over the curves of her now naked breasts. Laurel's breasts responded as eagerly as she did. If she could only breathe!

  "Oh, Lord." Collier leaned down to kiss one breast, then

  the other. Laurel thought she might melt—if she did not faint first. "Oh, Laurel, I was mistaken." He sat back, gazing full on. "You are not merely pretty. You are absolutely beautiful."

  She had never thought anybody would say something like that to her, much less someone so beautiful himself. And yet...

  Flushing hotter than ever, Laurel felt her breath jam in her throat, and panic overrode the delight of Collier's lovemak­ing. She thrashed beneath him, trying to get free of his legs, and to his credit he rose quickly onto his knees. "Lorelei?"

  But she was lunging over the side of the bed to throw up.

  That, Collier would later decide, had still been a high point to their first day of married life.

  Guilty of allowing her to drink to excess, he did manage to assist. He'd been around any number of drunks. He damp­ened a towel to clean her face and let her breathe its cool­ness. Opening the window to let in some icy fresh air helped as well.

  Both of them.

  Once he felt fully recovered, Collier slipped downstairs to fetch wine from the empty saloon. Hair of the dog, as it were. After petting and fussing over her, where she lay huddled, it even occurred to him to retie her camisole. This was not a proper time to be admiring her womanly endowments, and without them covered, he did not have that kind of self-control!

  Laurel blushed again when she realized what he was do­ing, and he kissed her cheek. "Later," he promised against her temple.

  . She shook her head vehemently. "Not later! We have a deal!"

  Her protest felt icier than the fresh air. "But earlier..."

  "You ambushed me earlier!"

  Collier could argue that it was he who had awoken with her on top of him, that he had given her any number of chances to stop him. But since he was no longer drunk, he found himself being a gentleman again. She was stopping him now.

  "My apologies." He could bring up the topic—and explain French letters—at a better time. "For my lapse in control."

  "Well." She tugged the towel off her face. "I lapsed too."

  She did at least attempt fairness, though grudgingly.

  Luckily for appearances, Laurel had initially woken quite early. She eventually recovered enough for them to complete their morning itinerary, going to the Coopers' residence to collect Collier's most necessary luggage and his thorough­bred.

  By then Laurel was no longer ill, merely cross.

  "We'll need to borrow packhorses," she decided, seeing what Collier considered necessary. "We can't get a wagon that far."

  No access by wagon? "Packhorses?" he repeated.

  "Packhorses," she confirmed. "Or mules."

  That took some doing as well. During much of it, Benjamin Cooper kept glaring at Collier, either because he thought Col­lier had deflowered his favorite "niece," or because he sus­pected Collier was at fault for her bad mood—or both. By the time they left, Collier felt glad to escape town even for the snowy foothills, both he and Laurel leading a mule. He rode his thoroughbred mare, Foolish Pride, which Alexandra had persuaded him to accept as a wedding gift. Laurel, of course, rode her shaggy, surefooted little mustang. And each mule was loaded high with only some of the clothing and mementos Collier had brought on his exile from England.

  The ride to Laurel's cabin was not completely unfamiliar— he had gone as high as the water hole. But with landscape evened out by snow, it seemed like wholly new territory, treacherous and slippery. They had to dismount and lead their horses carefully through a gulch, over knee-high in snow, or to edge around rocky spots. Collier could not re­member feeling this cold since a hunting trip he'd once taken in the Scottish Highlands.

  But when they reached Laurel's cabin, gratitude was not what Collier first felt. Laurel had been desperate to keep this?

  Cabin was a misnomer, one that had led to his envisioning hunting lodges or snug farming cottages. Laurel's shack was made of cheap lumber, covered with ugly black paper, and if it was even fifteen feet square, then Collier was a gypsy king.

  He was supposed to live here? For years?

  What had he done?

  "You unload the mules," called Laurel through the muffler that wrapped her mouth and nose. Only her eyes showed, watching his reaction sharply. "I'll fetch some hay for the stock."

  Unload the mules?

  Ah. Indeed He supposed, manual labor or not, he could not ask her to do it; it was his luggage. Dismounting at the corral, Collier studied the knots holding the packs onto the long-nosed, long-eared beasts. With a nod of triumph, he un­tied one. Voila!

  After hovering a moment, the tarpaulin-wrapped load be­gan to slide off the animal's opposite side.

  Collier grabbed futilely for it, but managed only to grasp an edge of the tarp, helping unwrap the load as it scattered into the snow. Startled, the mule let out an ungodly screech and bucked around the corral, returning twice to kick one particular offensive satchel.

  Collier decided right there that he hated mules—and that they should hire help.

  Laurel managed not to laugh. She helped him gather the loosest items to carry into the shack. But the view inside hard­ly improved Collier's spirits. When Laurel said, "Best finish with the stock," he went with her, if only to escape.

  But each time he carried another load of luggage in, the place just looked worse. By the time the animals were fed and watered, and Collier—with Laurel's help—had carried everything in, he knew he was not imagining the squalor of this place.

  What, in God's name, had he done? This was his punishment for pretending marriage ... and for not managing to see the place before taking vows. Clearly he had committed weightier sins than he would have imagined.

  "It will warm up some, once I get the stove going," Laurel assured him, drawing her muffler off her face and setting about starting a fire in what he assumed was the stove. He'd seen her mother's stove, due to the Garrisons penchant for gathering in their kitchen. One could fit eight of these into it.

  Slowly he pushed his own wrappings off his face. His breath misted as he looked around. Good Lord.

  She had an uneven table with an oil lamp and, in the cor­ner, a small bed whose log posts still wore their bark. When he looked closer, he saw that the mattress lay across a system of ropes. Even the small size of the bed did not hearten him. Solving the issue of marital relations with Laurel might at least ease some of the ... well, provide a silver lining to ...

  Then he decided that this was too bad for even the best of sport to redress.

  Other than the lopsided table and the bed, he saw no fur­niture. No chairs, only wooden boxes and nail kegs. No ward­robe, only pegs on the wall. Rather than sit on a box, he sank weakly onto the quilt-covered bed, wincing when he heard the mattress crunch beneath him. Hay. The girl sleeps on hay.

  Now he was the one who felt like throwing up.

  "Well, this is it," said Laurel cheerfully from the stove. Her mood had improved in proportion to how high they rode. "I—I know it may not seem like much, right off."

  Gentlemen never said, Lord, what a hellhole about some­one's home, no matter how meager. Gentlemen found some­thing, anything, to compliment.

  Laurel looked at him, then turned back to the fire she was building. "We can fix it up some," she added. "Eve
ntually. Once we begin to turn a profit."

  Collier searched the four walls around him with growing desperation. Something!

  Good Lord—the floor is dirt.

  "It's weather-tight." Laurel's voice rose slightly. This was why gentlemen found something to compliment, so as not to make people feel the way she was clearly starting to feel.

  Anything!

  "There's an outhouse, out back." She dropped a stick of firewood, then picked it up again. "If you ... that is..."

  An outhouse. "Did you build that yourself?"

  Laurel nodded, then raised her chin with pride. Ah. He had married a woman who could construct an outdoor lavatory... when the whole country looked like a lavatory from here.

  Collier swallowed back his growing disappointment. With one heavily gloved hand, he tested the mattress again. Still hay.

  "How very... capable of you."

  "I added that second window, too," she said quickly, point­ing. "And I reshingled the roof. The squirrels had gotten into it something awful. Vic and I filled the chinks at the bottom of the walls with rocks and sealed them with daub. I've only seen one snake inside since we finished."

  Collier stood again, no longer trusting the mattress.

  Laurel's eyes narrowed as if he'd insulted this place. He had not. He wanted to. This was not the sort of place where either of them should live, and he wanted to lash out at its ugliness. But he did not, out of respect for her. But all she said was, "Best take off your coat. Otherwise it won't warm you if you have to go back out."

  Collier did not plan to go back out—if he did, he might never turn around! But he supposed he had an outhouse to tour, for later. He removed his gloves and his chesterfield overcoat. It looked as unsuited for the peg where he hung it as he felt.

  Lord, but it was cold!

  "Well," he said. "Perhaps I'll unpack, then." Even if he had no idea where to put most of what he'd brought. He was stuck here, after all. He would not likely be welcome at the Coo­pers' residence, should he flee ... and he had nowhere else to go.

  He wondered darkly if Laurel kept any "medicine."

  "We can build shelves," she assured him—and he felt him­self relax into the relief of a marvelous idea.

  "Better yet, I shall buy us a cupboard," he said. "Or an armoire. And a proper bed."

  "Oh, we don't need any of that."

  "I insist," said Collier.

  "You would do better to put your money in savings, in case an emergency comes up."

  "No," repeated Collier fervently. "I really do insist."

  She scowled at him, and then at her cabin. "I suppose we could use chairs," she conceded slowly. "But the rest..."

  "You've noted yourself how many clothes I own. It would be hoggish of me to take all your lovely pegs. Assuming we can get it here without a wagon, a cupboard is simply essen­tial."

  "But not a bed," she said.

  "Absolutely a bed."

  "I like my bed."

  "You can't mean that." Collier could have bitten his tongue when that slipped out.

  "Well, I do, Mr. British Nobleman, Looking-Down-Your-Nose Pembroke!" She planted her hands on her hips. "My bed smells like the mountain. Not to mention that I built it myself. But maybe you wouldn't understand that, because I guess there isn't a single thing you've done by yourself in your whole life."

  "Well, that is uncalled for." And untrue. Just because he did not create things with his hands did not mean he did not have accomplishments!

  "Maybe you should get yourself that bed, though," contin­ued Laurel, working herself into a temper. "Otherwise we'll just have to take turns in mine, because I'm sure as shooting not going to risk sleeping in it with you."

  Oh, bloody hell! "Are you quite through?"

  She frowned down at the dirt floor. "I don't know."

  "I am doing my very best not to insult your... home."

  Her expression argued that his very best had not been much.

  "I will admit it is a shock to me. Did you think it would not be?"

  "I like it," she insisted. Proudly.

  Collier looked around the shack again, then decided per­haps he should stop doing that. It never got better, even trying to see it through her eyes. "Just because it... surprised me," he managed, "does not mean that I shall not make do. Es­pecially with extra furniture, perhaps a new stove."

  "I like my stove."

  "It is more like a stovelet," he noted.

  "Well, I bought it on my own, and I like it."

  He felt bloody cold for October. If they were to have sep­arate beds, perhaps they could have separate stoves.

  Unsure what else to do, he began to put his boxes and satchels in some rough order, deciding what he could take out and what would stay packed. One of the first things he dug out was a thick sweater, which he put on. He made sure he knew where to find his books, as he would likely be doing a great deal of reading up here. And as for his Union Jack—

  "What's that?" asked Laurel, as he unfolded the banner of dark blue crossed with red and white.

  "It's the flag of Britain. It combines the crosses of Saint George, for England; Saint Andrew, for Scotland; and Saint Patrick, for Ireland." And it was beautiful.

  "Why do you have it?"

  That seemed unusually thick of her. "Because I am British."

  "But... you weren't planning to fly it, were you?"

  The idea appealed tremendously. This little shack might be a hovel for now, but at the very least, he could proclaim his presence by flying the flag of his birth.

  Laurel looked ill at the very thought.

  Unwilling to risk one more argument today, Collier silently and reverently folded the flag and put it back in its protective wooden box. This was a battle he would choose for another day—among what he feared was a rising mass of battles he had never expected.

  Laurel wasn't sure whether to feel angry at Collier or sorry for him. He looked so rueful, going through his belongings as if they were all he had left in the world. They weren't! He was half owner of this cabin now—a cabin she felt sure would prove its worth to him as the winter continued and they re­mained snug and tight. He owned ten heifers, earmarked and out on the range, that with any luck would produce calves come spring.

  He had her.

  But of course, that part of the marriage was just pretend.

  After making sure the cabin was warming up, she put her coat and wrappings back on to look around her claim, to see if everything had weathered the storm well enough. She did not invite Collier to come along, and he did not suggest it. She liked doing it herself. She dug down through the snow to harvest some frozen carrots. Then she spent some time leaning on the top pole of the corral, watching the two horses—little shaggy Snapper and Collier's fine thoroughbred mare—and the borrowed mules.

  When she went in, Collier was still sorting his belongings.

  "Whatever is this?" he asked, holding up a cigar box with what looked like two cigar butts stuck inside it.

  Laurel wished he did not sound so ... fastidious... when he said that. "It's our wedding present from Elise. Two co­coons."

  "Cocoons."

  "Mmm-hm. She caught some caterpillars, and fed them un­til they made themselves cocoons. In the spring they'll be tiger moths. We should put them someplace dark and dry, but not very warm. Maybe the woodshed."

  Collier slid the box across the table from him.

  "She's only six," defended Laurel.

  "A candy dish would likely be out of her range," Collier agreed, with a quirk of his lips.

  "I think it's a wonderful gift!"

  So much for the hint of a smile. "Is there anything I can say or do today that would not insult you?"

  She hadn't been that touchy, had she? If so, she guessed she could blame it on how sick she'd felt this morning, or perhaps on how ... Well, what he'd done to her, as they woke up.

  It hadn't bothered her at the time, of course. It had felt good—and exciting, like the best possible
dare. But as much as she liked him talking to her like that, touching her like that...

  Well, she felt all the more rankled at having to stop. And of course they had had to stop. Yet...

  Being sick the morning after her wedding embarrassed her. But she felt even more embarrassed by how badly she'd wanted—still wanted—to do what she and Collier had agreed not to.

  Maybe that was what riled her. If men's urges were even more powerful than women's, then she supposed she should have more sympathy for her husband. So she sighed, letting as much animosity as possible vanish on that long release of breath. "I'm not certain. I seem to be in the mood to be in­sulted."

  Collier—beautiful even in the shadows of the late-afternoon cabin—managed a wan smile. Honesty, at least, they could try.

  But before she could learn where that honesty could take them, Laurel heard Collier's thoroughbred neigh. Loudly.

  Was someone coming? She did not know the mare well enough to recognize whether she was frightened or merely interested, but Laurel went to the window to check the corral, just to be sure.

  The other horses seemed disturbed, too—milling, jumpy, looking continuously toward the back of the cabin.

  A bear, she guessed, going cold. Maybe a mountain lion.

  "Best get your coat." She went to the door for hers.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I don't know yet." She made sure, after wrapping up, not to put on her gloves. It was harder to use a rifle with gloved hands. And she was taking her rifle.

  They stepped outside in time to hear a different horse's bugle, not from the corral—familiar despite the fact that she'd never heard a wild horse so close before. They weren't facing a grizzly. "Oh!"

  "Oh what?" Collier had a rifle too—she'd not realized he'd brought something so useful. "What is wrong with the horses?"

  Laurel stood frozen, not doing anything she should. She knew she was failing him. And yet when the wild stallion trumpeted through the clearing, she couldn't even lift her rifle.

  Collier's thoroughbred bugled back, and then the mustang stallion charged into view from the woods. Laurel caught glimpses of movement, from his harem amidst the trees, but mostly she saw him, rearing up, kicking down the top rail of the corral—