Mountain Laurel Read online

  About five years ago her parents, along with Thomas and Bailey and Linq, had visited her in Paris, and she’d been embarrassed that she wasn’t using the name her father had given her. It was as though she were ashamed of it. Her father had laughed at her and said that a name was just a word, that she was his daughter no matter what she called herself.

  She told ’Ring about that visit to Paris, how Thomas and Linq as well as her father had been restless and wanted to get back home. “But my father did look handsome in evening clothes.” Bailey, however, had loved Paris, and two times her father and Thomas had had to bail him out of jail, where he’d been put for lewd conduct. Her father refused to tell her exactly what Bailey had done.

  It began to rain again, and it was cold, so they snuggled together by the fire and ate turkey and rabbit (which they were getting sick of) and Maddie talked more and more about her parents, telling ’Ring about her mother’s paintings that were already being acclaimed as having documented a time that never would be again.

  It was at night when it was so cold that to keep warm they had to lay together, wrapped in each other’s arms, that she began to feel her confusion. Never before had she been so aware of the fact that she was such a misfit. She belonged to the silken world of opera, but she also belonged to the wild world of Jefferson Worth. And where did this man fit into her life?

  She put her face up to his to be kissed, but he lifted his chin away from her.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why do you say you love me then turn away from me? Why do you look at me so…so lustily yet touch me as little as you can? Really touch me, I mean.”

  “Ah, sweetheart, don’t you know how many people are watching us?”

  “Watching us?”

  “There’s three of them out there. They’ve been near you from the first. They follow you, only now I think one of them is following me rather than you. Pardon my fastidiousness, but I don’t care for performing for an audience.”

  “Who are the other two?” She knew about Hears Good, and now she knew why he hadn’t come to her the night she’d whistled to him. He’d known that ’Ring was near. She couldn’t help smiling. If Hears Good had left her in the care of ’Ring, it meant that the Indian approved of him. That was high praise indeed.

  “One is the man who took my horse.”

  “You mean the gambler?”

  “Gambler?” He pulled away a bit to look at her.

  “That’s what he looks like: a slick riverboat gambler. He should wear a gold brocade vest and a white panama hat. I wonder if he can sing.”

  “He can’t,” ’Ring said quickly.

  “Mmmm, I wonder. Who else is following us?”

  “One of the men you meet,” he said, and there was derision in his voice. He picked up the hand that was wearing Laurel’s ring. “The man who gave you the ring.”

  She snatched her hand away from him and hid it between them. “Is that why you don’t touch me?” she whispered.

  “Other than the fact that I promised, you mean?”

  She laughed. “Some promise. You said that our bodies fit together perfectly and that you’d like to put my fingers in your mouth one by one and suck on them and that you’d like to—”

  “Shut up,” he snapped.

  Maddie looked at him and saw that he was under a great strain. “Wasn’t there some mention of my shoulders and the inside of my elbow?”

  “Maddie, stop talking.” There was sweat breaking out on his forehead.

  “What else?” She squirmed against him just a bit, as though she were looking for a comfortable place. “Something about my feet, wasn’t there? You’d like to kiss my feet. Was that something you’ve learned? No man has ever kissed my feet before.”

  “No man has kissed any of you before,” he said in a gruff voice that sounded as though he were in pain.

  “Ha! That’s what you think. I’ve had men drink champagne from my slippers. A man once offered me a ruby necklace to go to bed with him. Men have offered me everything to be their mistress. But it is true that no man has ever said that he wanted to make love to my foot before. Shoulders, yes, but feet, no.”

  At that ’Ring put his hand on her jaw and turned her head so that he could kiss her. And Maddie lost herself in that kiss. She didn’t care who was watching them, all that mattered was this man and this moment.

  “ ’Ring,” she whispered, and her free arm went around him. “My ’Ring.”

  He was the one who pulled away from her. “We can’t, Maddie. No, I won’t. I’ll not perform for an audience. There are too many people watching us.”

  She turned away and snuggled her back against his front, and between them was such a tension that Maddie knew her body was vibrating with her desire. Her hands were trembling and images kept forming in her mind: When she’d pulled the thorns from him and had run her hands over his legs; the day he’d helped push the coach from the water and he’d removed his shirt; the night he’d come to her wearing nothing but a loincloth.

  “Maddie…” he said, and there was warning in his voice. “Think of something else.”

  “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

  He held out his hand toward the fire, and when he did so she could see that it was shaking, just as hers was.

  “Why did you tell me no the day I took the thorns from you?”

  “Because then I was Captain Montgomery to you. I was a good-looking, well-built man and we were alone and you are one passionate woman.”

  She snorted at that. “Even your sister says you’re ugly.”

  “Ugly in my family is relative.”

  She groaned. “Spare me. I knew from the moment I met you that you were vain, but I had no idea of the depth of your vanity.”

  “Who has the best voice in the world?”

  She smiled in the darkness. “I get your point. So, now you think it’s different? Now you think I see you as anything besides a good-looking man?”

  “What do you think?”

  She held his hand in hers and looked at it. He had long, thin fingers and beautifully shaped nails. What did she think of him? At this moment she couldn’t imagine being without him. From the first he seemed to know her better than anyone had ever known her. He was right that at first she hadn’t paid much attention to him except as a beautiful man, but now…Now she remembered the times he’d risked his life to protect her, how he’d climbed up a cliff to be with her, how he’d come for her after she’d sung Carmen. She thought of all the wounds on his body that he’d suffered because of her. She thought of the times she’d drugged him and tricked him, yet he was still here with her, still trying to help her.

  “General Yovington has been helping me,” she said softly. “Some men took my little sister Laurel, and if I’m to get her back, I have to sing in six camps, and at each place I am to meet a man and exchange letters with him. They promised I would see Laurel this time, but they lied to me.” She held up her hand. “The man gave me the ring I sent Laurel as proof that they have her. He said…he said that they would kill you if you didn’t stop interfering in this.”

  She choked back tears. “They say that they’ll give me back Laurel at the last town, but I’m afraid. I’m beginning to think they won’t do it. I’m afraid they’ll kill her because of the stupid war they want to start.” She couldn’t stop the tears. “And now I’m afraid they’re going to hurt you too.”

  He turned her toward him and held her tightly. He even put his leg over hers as though to protect her completely. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”

  She cried for some time. “How can you know? You don’t know how dangerous these men are. He said—”

  “You don’t have to tell me, I heard it all.”

  “Heard it all?” She sniffed and he offered her a wet, soiled handkerchief. “What did you hear?”

  “Everything the man said to you. You’re safe now, so why don’t you go to sleep? We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

  She pulled away from him