Mountain Laurel Read online

  “A duchess from Lanconia?” He looked at her with one eyebrow raised.

  Quite suddenly she realized what he was doing. She had been trembling when he’d entered and near to tears, but now she was better—a lot better. “How about a glass of port, Captain?”

  He knew she understood, and it made him feel good. “I’d rather have a song. A song just for me.”

  “Ha!” she said, but she was smiling. “You must slay dragons for that reward. Tonight all you deserve is a glass of port. But it is the finest port in the world.” It pleased her that he’d gone from ridiculing her singing to wanting her to sing for him.

  “Then I’ll have to take what I can get, but I mean to earn that song.”

  She poured the rich liquid into two crystal glasses that she kept in a box specially made to hold and protect them.

  “To truth,” he said, raising his glass.

  Maddie drank the toast, but she fully expected to be struck dead on the spot. She gave him a weak smile over the top of the glass and vowed to not give him another piece of information.

  The next day they traveled and Maddie was once again stuck inside the rocking coach with Edith, who slept and snored. Captain Montgomery had asked to be allowed to ride inside with her, but she’d refused. She would very much have liked his company, someone to talk with, but he’d gotten too much information out of her.

  At midmorning Frank stopped the coach and the captain came to the window. “I’m afraid I have a favor to ask of you. Toby isn’t feeling well, so could he ride inside the coach?”

  “Of course. He can sit by Edith.”

  “That’s the whole idea,” ’Ring said softly.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  He motioned for her to lean toward him. “I think they’re in love,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Oh?” She straightened and looked from Edith to Toby, who looked perfectly fit.

  ’Ring motioned her down again. “They want to be alone.”

  She still wasn’t understanding.

  “You can ride with me.”

  “I see. If this is an attempt to get me alone with you, you can forget—”

  “You can ride my horse.”

  She didn’t question how he’d known she could ride his stallion, or that she was greedy to do so, but she wasn’t going to turn down the offer. She flung open the coach door so quickly she caught Toby on the shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  ’Ring practically lifted Toby and thrust him into the coach, then slammed the door behind him. “Edith can take care of him.” He moved his arm in a sweeping gesture toward that gorgeous horse of his.

  She smiled up at the animal. “Here, Satan,” she called, but the horse didn’t move. “Satan?”

  ’Ring took off his hat and scratched his head. “Try, ah…Buttercup.”

  She looked at him. “Buttercup?”

  “It wasn’t my idea. My little sister named him. He eats anything. My brothers wanted to name him Sawdust, but I thought Buttercup was the lesser of the two evils.”

  “No Satan?”

  He looked down at his hat. “I would have been laughed out of my family. You ready to ride him?”

  “Come, Buttercup,” she called, and the horse trotted straight to her, went past her outstretched hand, and started munching on the coach’s red paint.

  She laughed, took the reins, and mounted.

  “He’s not used to anybody but me, so your lighter weight may disturb him,” ’Ring said as he shortened the stirrups for her.

  She patted the horse’s neck. “I’ll manage. My father taught me to ride. We’ll get along fine, won’t we, you big, beautiful male?”

  Frank looked at ’Ring and ’Ring shook his head. Women and horses.

  Maddie handled Buttercup easily. It was wonderful to once again be on the back of such a spirited animal, and she went up the steep hill ahead of the coach so that ’Ring, on Toby’s horse, had trouble keeping up with her. She would have loved to try him out on a flat stretch of ground, but in the Rockies, flat land was not to be had.

  When ’Ring pulled up beside her, she was grinning broadly.

  “It must be wonderful to be back in the country where you grew up,” he said casually.

  “Oh, it is. It’s heavenly. The air is so clear and cool and—” She realized he’d trapped her again. She looked at him, and he was smiling smugly. She looked away. “Captain,” she said slowly, “what is your name? I mean besides ‘boy’ as Toby calls you?”

  “Or ‘devil incarnate’ as you call me?”

  She kept her face turned away from him.

  “It’s ’Ring.”

  She turned and gave him an odd look. “ ’Ring? I see. And all these brothers and sisters you have, what are their names? Necklace? Bracelet? Anklet, perhaps?”

  He chuckled. “No, actually it’s Christopher Hring Montgomery. My middle name is spelled with an H on the front of it, but the H isn’t pronounced. My mother always spelled my name with an apostrophe on the front of it. I guess it kept people from calling me Huh-ring”

  She was silent for a while, enjoying the air and the wonderful horse beneath her. “Where did you get such a name?”

  “My father has a big old family Bible full of names for our family.”

  “Such as?”

  “Jarl and Raine and Jocelyn.”

  “Jocelyn’s pretty.”

  “Not when it’s given to a boy, as it is in our family.”

  “Perhaps you’d have to give the boy another name, such as…well, I don’t know. Lyn, maybe.”

  “Lyn! He’d have to defend himself with a gun from the time he was six.”

  “Lyn isn’t any worse than ’Ring. Why didn’t they call you Chris?”

  “Christopher is my father’s name. I would have been ‘Young Chris’ or, in our family, ‘Young Kit.’ All in all, ’Ring is all right, just so it’s not Huh-ring.”

  He smiled at her. “And where did you get the name Maddie?”

  “From the queen, of course. She names all the little duchesses.”

  “I guess she named your little sister Laurel after some Lanconian plant. I’ll bet—”

  He stopped because all humor left her face. He searched his mind for what he’d said wrong. “Laurel,” he said softly, and saw her wince. “Look! Was that a mountain bluebird?” He watched her turn away, and when she looked back she had herself under control again. Laurel, he thought. Perhaps all this had to do with her little sister Laurel.

  He didn’t try to provoke her again but let her enjoy the day as he vowed to keep an even closer watch on her than he had.

  Chapter 6

  Maddie’s second performance needed no showy display to make the miners listen to her, for word of her first performance had spread across the mountain and men had traveled from camps all over to hear her.

  She told Captain Montgomery that she would sing outside. He’d protested, but relented when he saw how determined she was. The men built her a stage of sorts, large enough for her and for Frank behind her, this time playing a flute. Captain Montgomery stood at one end and Toby at the other.

  While she was singing she glanced once at Captain Montgomery. He was leaning against a tree, his eyes closed in pleasure. Whatever else she had to say about him, he was coming to genuinely like her music. By the end of the performance she found herself singing for him, watching out of the corner of her eye as, when she played with notes, holding them, trilling them up and down, he’d smile ever so sweetly.

  When, after four hours, he led her from the stage, he wrapped her arm tightly in his, his fingers closing over hers. “You were right,” he said. “You cannot say enough about your voice.”

  She thought perhaps it was the most sincere compliment she’d ever received. The compliment was so sincere and the moonlight was so lovely that she didn’t invite him into her tent for a glass of port, and once she was alone inside the tent she got out her photograph of Laurel and looked at it for a long while. Wh