Читать книгу The Scout's Bride - Kate Kingsley - Страница 10

Rebecca’s patients did not awaken at the sounds of Dress Retreat from the parade ground. Teddy stirred fitfully when the sunset gun was fired, but Injun Jack snored on, sleeping the sleep of the dead.

Or the dead drunk. The woman glared at him. The scout lay with his back to her, his good arm crooked beneath his head.

He hadn’t awakened when she redressed his wound after their fall or when she washed his exposed upper body, unwilling to remove his leather pants. He didn’t move now as the nurses bustled around, lighting the lamps against the approaching night. No innocent babe ever slept more soundly, Rebecca thought tartly, and Injun Jack Bellamy was far from innocent.

He had tramped into the hospital, threatened the nurses and tried to intimidate her. He had insulted her, pawed her and made her lose her temper, something she tried never to do. But most disturbing was the memory of his drunken kiss and the feelings it stirred in her. No one, not even Paul, had affected her so.

“Why don’t you go home and get some sleep, Rebecca?” Trying to keep his gravelly voice low, Doc Trotter joined her.

“I thought I’d stay awhile yet.” She smiled at the short, stout man.

“As you say, my dear.” Careful not to waken Teddy, he peered beneath the blanket at his wounded leg. “We must keep an eye on that red streak,” he muttered. “He’s resting easily enough. I thought he might need more painkiller, but apparently he does not.”

“He partook rather liberally of Mr. Bellamy’s flask.”

“Mr. Bellamy? Ah, Injun Jack.” Doc nodded in comprehension. “Sergeant Unger told me you had taken him on.” He regarded her, uncertain how to broach the subject. “He didn’t…er… harm you?”

Her face colored tellingly. “I’m fine, thank you. And so is he, though he did his arm no good when we fell.”

“How badly is he injured? I’d as soon face an angry bear than rouse Injun Jack.”

“He’ll be fine until morning. The arrow passed through his arm and there’s no sign of blood poisoning. I cleaned the wound thoroughly before he passed out—-”

“From pain?”

“From whiskey.”

The physician laughed aloud at her rueful expression. “Pain, exhaustion and good bourbon make a mighty potent sedative. This is probably the first sleep he’s had in days.

“You’ve done a fine job, my dear,” he complimented her. “Call if Private Greeley awakens in pain. We’ll make do with laudanum since there’s no more morphine and no supply wagons within a hundred miles. I’ll be glad when the railroad finally reaches Chamberlain.

“Sure I can’t talk you into going home?” he asked, preparing to leave her. “I can get one of the nurses to walk with you.

“Very well,” he said when she shook her head. “Keep pouring water down our young friend. If his fever continues past midnight, dose him with more quinine and rub him with alcohol to cool him. I’ll be close by if you need me.”

“Doc—” she stopped him impulsively “—do you know who Joe is? Mr. Bellamy has been muttering about him.”

“Old Jo—that’s his horse,” he replied with a chuckle, “named after his old commander, General Shelby. If he wakes up, tell him I had the ornery animal taken to the stables.”

“Mr. Bellamy was a soldier?” Rebecca stared skeptically at the shaggy man. He snored through her scrutiny.

“A major in the Iron Brigade of the West, one of the finest in the Confederate Cavalry.” Perched on a footlocker, Doc drew on an endless supply of post gossip. “He doesn’t talk much about himself, but I understand he comes from a fine old family.”

“An officer and a gentleman,” she murmured sadly. “You would never know now. What do you suppose happened?”

“The war.” The physician shrugged.

“The war changed a lot of things,” she murmured. “So Major Bellamy came west.”

“I understand he has lived among the Indians for the past few years. He’s an expert tracker and the best interpreter on the plains. The army’s only complaint is that he’d rather talk to hostiles than fight them. Says he’s had a bellyful of killing.”

“He has an odd way of showing it,” she scoffed. “He pulled a knife on Privates Westfield and Farina this afternoon.”

Getting to his feet, Doc grinned. “Did he hurt them?”

“No.” Rebecca could not help but return his smile. “But they nearly hurt themselves trying to get away.”

“Thus the legend of fearsome Injun Jack grows.” His dark eyes twinkling in amusement, the physician departed.

Rebecca settled in, shifting in her seat, searching for a comfortable position. A crackle of paper reminded her of the letter in her apron pocket. She had been busy when the courier brought it.

Pulling out the envelope, she inspected it in the dim light. Wrinkled and water-stained, its postmark was more than a month old. Judging by the scrawled address, her stepbrother’s wrath had still been at fever pitch when he had written it.

But Lyle was usually angry. Cold, unremitting fury seemed to be a Hope family trait. Rebecca had been seven years old when her widowed mother had married Lyle’s father, Caleb.

Dour and acrimonious, Caleb had had little regard for anyone or anything. He’d blamed everyone but himself for his misfortunes. When her mother died, he had considered his stepdaughter an unpaid servant, a housekeeper or a field hand, depending on the season. He treated his own son little better. He wore out his land, sapping its fertility, and died on the brink of ruin, cursing God.

Lyle was his father’s son. For years, Rebecca had dodged his fists when cold anger gave way to white-hot temper. Not every man would give his spinster sister a home, he had told her as she cooked and cleaned and helped him hold onto his rocky inheritance. She hadn’t believed his self-righteous mouthings, but they had worn on her, almost as much as his constant criticism.

Nothing had pleased him. When times were hard, she worked in the fields beside him, but when crops failed and bills came due, he begrudged even the food she ate…until Paul Emerson proposed.

Sweet, kind Paul, her childhood friend, had returned from the war a confident, soft-spoken man; a captain in the U.S. Cavalry. And he had wanted Rebecca as his wife.

Her stepbrother had been livid to think she would desert him, her only family. He forbade her to see her suitor, threatening to lock her in her room. In the end, his harshness drove her away.

Though Rebecca was fond of Paul, she had not loved him. She had promised herself she would learn. It would not be difficult. He was a good man and she would make him a good wife.

She had tried, though there had been little time. No sooner had they arrived at windswept Fort Chamberlain, one of a string of forts across the frontier, than Paul had been assigned to lead a series of patrols. While her bridegroom came and went, the new Mrs. Captain Emerson endeavored to make a home for them. Surrounded by determinedly genteel officers’ ladies, she strove to become the perfect wife, the wife Paul deserved.

During an expedition to Fort Wallace, where cholera raged, he contracted the disease. He was quarantined upon his return to Fort Chamberlain. Rebecca had stayed by his side to the end. In a matter of days, she found herself alone among strangers, her marriage over almost before it had begun.

“Water, please, water.” The hoarse plea penetrated her memories. Stuffing the envelope into her pocket, she looked around. Across the aisle, Doc rose from a chair in the shadows to tend the recent amputee.

Both of Rebecca’s charges slept. Teddy felt warm, but it was too early for more quinine. Poised to place her hand on Injun Jack’s forehead, she snatched it back when he grunted without opening his eyes, “Leave me alone.”

“I’ll leave you alone,” she muttered under her breath, “till the cows come home.”

Fuming, she went to the window and stared out. From the dark parade ground came the comforting sounds that had already become the rhythm of her life.

The buglers’ call to Tattoo heralded the sound of voices as the men assembled for roll call amid flickering lanterns. The officers on duty emerged from their houses on the Row and went to the flagstaff where the nightly reports would be made. Soon Taps would sound on the night wind, lights would fade from windows and Fort Chamberlain would sleep.

Returning to her chair, Rebecca opened Lyle’s letter. As she expected, it was filled with recriminations. Faced with imminent failure, he ordered his stepsister to come home and bring Paul. The soldier boy would find plenty to keep him busy on the farm, he insisted, instead of gallivanting around the West, chasing Indians.

He closed his scribbled diatribe by reminding Rebecca that she owed him a debt of loyalty. He also requested money, neglecting to thank her or even to mention her savings that she had left for him.

She did not know whether to laugh or cry. She had no money. Paul had left her twenty-seven dollars in greenbacks, a small pension, and a large bill with the army trader. She had dismissed the striker, the soldier he had hired as a servant, and returned unused luxuries to the trading post, but her pride would not allow her to make her dilemma known. No one knew but Mr. Peeples, the trader; Colonel Quiller, the post commander; and her friend Flora.

Closing her eyes, the widow tried to recalculate her meager finances as she had so many times in the past month. The numbers were chased from her head when Teddy thrashed in his bed.

Discovering he burned with fever, she forced water and more quinine down his unwilling throat. She bathed him and talked to him softly through the long night. When his fever broke a little before dawn, Doc appeared, eyes bloodshot and chin unshaven, to help her change the perspiration-soaked linens.

“He should sleep now,” he told her when her patient rested quietly. “Let me get my jacket and I’ll walk you home.”

The first hint of dawn lit the sky when they emerged from the hospital to stand for a moment, overlooking the parade ground. Encircled by a wide, hard-packed dirt road, the quadrangle was the center of life at Fort Chamberlain, bordered on the east by barracks and headquarters buildings and on the west by Officers’ Row, the hospital and the main gate. At opposite ends of the grassy expanse, the post’s only trees jutted up unexpectedly on the flat plain: a tamarack that overshadowed the hospital porch and a cottonwood near Suds Row, the laundresses’ quarters.

Rebecca breathed the morning freshness, savoring the quiet. Soon the fort would be clamorously awake and bustling. Though the wind had died, the air was chilly. In the stillness, the only sound was the croaking of the frogs in the river behind Suds Row.

“Your help was invaluable as usual, Rebecca,” the contract surgeon said as they walked to her quarters on Officers’ Row, “but I wish you would not work so hard.”

“I don’t mind. It gives me something to do with my time.”

He shook his gray head sadly. “Every time I look at you, my girl, I wish things could have been different. You deserve to be happy.”

They walked in silence, stopping in front of her tiny duplex quarters. Like all the housing at Fort Chamberlain, it was shoddily built and unpainted. Dust sifted through the chinks in the summer, and snow in the winter. The wooden structure’s most appealing features were the communal porches affixed to its front and rear.

“Have you decided yet what you are going to do?” Doc asked in a hushed voice, careful not to wake her neighbors.

“I want to stay,” she sighed. “Paul and I were going to make a new life in Kansas. I know it will be hard, but I want that new life, even without him.”

“You’ve explained that to Colonel Quiller?” he asked gravely.

“Yes, but what I wish and what the army wishes are very different things. I fear the army will have the last word.”

“You don’t think he can be persuaded?”

“He insists the frontier is no place for a woman. For me to stay would be imprudent as well as improper.” Her voice was bleak as she recalled her last meeting with the commander. “He says I must return to the East as soon as it is safe to travel.”

“I wish there was something I could do,” the man said glumly. “Edgar Quiller is the stubbornest man I’ve ever met.”

“You’re a good friend, Doc. You needn’t do anything—except quit calling me by that ridiculous nickname,” she teased quietly as she mounted the steps.

“But it fits, Rebecca-Perfecta.” He grinned. “Good night.”

“Good night.” With a chuckle, she closed the door.

Reveille sounded as Rebecca went into her tiny kitchen. Drinking a dipperful of tepid water from the bucket by the back door, she wistfully eyed the coal scuttle beside the cold stove. She was too tired to haul water for a bath and her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her that she had missed dinner last night.

Locating a day-old biscuit, she smeared it with apple butter and stepped onto the back porch to gaze out at the prairie beyond the dreary yard.

She was glad Fort Chamberlain was an open post. Wellguarded and armed with moveable howitzers, its only earthworks were trenches; the only ramparts, the positions of the sentries.

But she never felt a threat here, only an exhilarating sense of freedom as she viewed the plains spreading out before her, undulating and as vast as an ocean. Its mood, its color changed with every hour, with every day. During her short stay in Kansas, Rebecca had come to love the vivid blue mornings sparkling with dew, the lavender haze of the evenings and the bright wildflowers that dotted the dun-colored landscape, so different from the green hills of Pennsylvania.

“Good morning, Messmate,” she called softly when a lean, gray-striped cat emerged from under the steps and stretched sleepily. Plopping down to sit on his haunches, he meowed and blinked at her expectantly.

“Sorry about dinner,” she whispered, presenting the last of her biscuit, “but I should have known you’d be here for breakfast.”

The cat climbed the steps to sniff her offering dubiously. Taking it from her fingers, he chewed without enthusiasm, then looked to her for more.

Through the thin walls of the duplex behind her, Rebecca heard her neighbors rising. Inside, pots clanged, Captain March whistled a jaunty tune and his wife called her family to breakfast.

The cheerful, homey sounds made her feel even more alone. Tears burned her eyes as the familiar sense of loss flooded over her. Drawing a ragged breath, she forced herself to remember that she had lost her husband, but not her entire future.

She would go on with her life, she vowed, trudging into the house. She would find a way to stay in the West.

Opening her eyes, Rebecca looked dully around the stifling bedroom. She lay on her narrow bed, fully clothed, except.for her cage crinoline. Collapsed and misshapen, it rested on the floor where she had shed it. By the light filtering through the curtains, she guessed it was well into the morning. When the knocking that had awakened her resumed, she stumbled to the parlor and opened the door. An immaculate soldier stood on the other side.

“Private Ballard at your service, Mrs. Captain Emerson,” he greeted her with a polite bow. Having won the honor of serving as orderly of the day by being the best turned out man at Guard Mount, he took his duty very seriously. “Colonel Quiller sends his compliments and requests your presence in his office.”

“Now?” She blinked sleepily.

“As soon as possible, ma’am.”

“Please tell him I’ll come as soon as I make myself presentable, Private. I will be there within half an hour.”

“I’ll wait, if you please, ma’am.” He sat down on the shady bench outside the front door.

Rumpled and out of sorts, she returned to the bedroom to inspect her black dress in the washstand mirror. How stupid to have fallen asleep in her only mourning gown. With no time to press and freshen it, she would have to find another dress.

Within ten minutes, she had returned her crinoline roughly to the shape it had been before her encounter with Injun Jack and improvised a suitable mourning costume by affixing a black collar and cuffs to a purple dress. Her face was scrubbed, her hair neatly arranged, and her bonnet tied under her chin when she emerged to rescue the orderly from her neighbor boy, Billy March.

Grateful for deliverance from the five-year-old tyrant who had challenged his right to sit on the porch, Private Ballard escorted the widow across the parade ground. He chatted amiably, glad for the rare opportunity to talk with a woman.

Rebecca responded, but her mind was on the upcoming meeting. Why had the colonel sent for her? Had he heard of Injun Jack’s drunken kiss and decided to bar her from the hospital? Was wagon traffic rolling again? Or had he changed his mind about allowing her to stay? Whatever the reason, this audience would give her a chance to present her case again, she told herself optimistically. She would hear what he had to say… then he would hear her.

“It will be nice, don’t you think?” the orderly was asking.

“I’m sorry.” She smiled in apology. “What will be nice?”

“The gazebo for the dance.” He indicated an unfinished building near the main gate. Within its skeletal frame, a fatigue detail of Negro soldiers clambered up and down ladders, fastening festive paper lanterns to the exposed rafters. “Mrs. Major Little decided the new blockhouse would be just the place to hold the Fourth of July dance. She convinced the Old Man that it would look like a grand gazebo… as good as any they have back East.”

“Indeed.” Rebecca fought a grin as she envisioned Mrs. Little descending on the commander. Since Colonel Quiller was a widower, the wife of the next ranking officer had stepped into the coveted role of hostess. Critical and overbearing, Mrs. Major Little was the enforcer of army tradition and the undisputed social leader at Fort Chamberlain. She enjoyed the deference of the handful of officers’ wives at the post and strove tirelessly to bring the frontier up to eastern standards.

“I don’t imagine you’ve met Mr. Derward Anderson?” He gestured toward a dapper fellow who had set up an easel under the tamarack near the hospital. “He arrived last night.”

“I have not had the pleasure.” She watched the man fight to keep his sketchbook from being borne away on the Kansas wind.

“He came all the way from New York City to tour the untamed West and report on it for the Illustrated News.”

“How exciting,” Rebecca replied appropriately. For soldiers faced with years of monotonous duty on the frontier, a visitor was a welcome diversion.

“He has already gotten a taste of the barbarous frontier,” the young man related with relish. “A band of Sioux attacked the freight wagon bringing him from the railhead and chased it almost all the way here.

“Though you’re not to worry, ma’am,” he added hastily. “You’re safe at Fort Chamberlain. Our lads are as brave as any on the plains.”

“Of that I am certain, Private Ballard.”

His chest swelling with pride, the orderly showed Rebecca into the colonel’s spartan office. “Mrs. Captain Emerson, sir.”

“Very good, Private.” Dismissing him with a nod, Colonel Quiller invited, “Do come in, Mrs. Emerson, and sit down.”

“Thank you.” Rebecca looked around, glad to see Lieutenant Porter, the ever-present adjutant, was absent. She could speak to the commander in relative privacy, though his staff worked on the other side of the high partition covered with maps and rosters. She longed to leap to her appeal, but she forced herself to sit and ask serenely, “You wished to see me, sir?”

Reluctant to begin, the colonel observed his visitor across the desk. Not a hair was out of place despite the infernal wind, and she looked cool, even in the heat. But, as usual, he found her to be a study in contradictions. Though she was not wearing the obligatory black of mourning, her appearance was thoroughly decorous. He preferred her purple dress to her widow’s weeds, he decided. Their stiffness always seemed out of place with her lively hazel eyes. Those eyes had been sad in recent days and he found he missed her laughter and dimpled smile.

But when she turned that smile upon him now, he mentally girded himself for battle. That she was a worthy adversary had come as a surprise at first, but he was beginning to recognize signs of her mettle. Though she looked soft and demure, he knew from experience her proper demeanor masked considerable intellect and a will of pure steel, a formidable combination.

He liked her, he admired the fact that she never resorted to tears, he even enjoyed their skirmishes. But their eventual outcome was never in doubt. She had to go. Women were the worst thing that could happen to an army post. Just look at the folderol involved in a simple Fourth of July celebration. Picnics, cotillions, gazebos…

Brusquely he turned his attention to the matter at hand. “Mrs. Emerson, I regret that it has been impossible to arrange for your return to the East since your husband’s death. After the massacre at Lookout Station, overland travel has all but halted.

“That unhappy circumstance is about to change, however. Three companies will leave Texas within the week, bound for Fort Chamberlain. When our joint forces have sought out the Sioux and the Cheyenne and placed them on reservations, you may proceed safely homeward.

“Unfortunately—” he charged ahead to deter her protest “—I must ask you to vacate your quarters in preparation for our reinforcements’ arrival. You are being ‘ranked out,’ as we say in the army. My apologies for the inconvenience, but I fear you must stay with friends until your departure.”

She sat forward on her chair. “Colonel Quiller, couldn’t I-”

“There can be no debate this time, madam.” He silenced her with a gesture. “I do not understand your reluctance to return to the safety and comfort of the East, but it changes nothing. To put it plainly, you are a civilian with no rights, no place here.”

“Even if I found employment?” She surveyed him challengingly.

“At Fort Chamberlain?”

“I could work at the hospital.”

“What kind of rubbish has Noah Trotter been filling your head with?” the colonel asked exasperatedly. “Be assured, Mrs. Emerson, we all appreciate your help, but a military hospital is no place for a young lady.”

“Perhaps I could work off my debt at the trading post.”

“Absolutely not. Mr. Peeples is quite willing to accept payment in installments.”

“I can cook,” she offered desperately.

“Enough!” he cut her off. “Your late husband would be shamed to hear you suggest such a thing.”

“He would be more ashamed to think I cannot live on what he left me.” She kept her voice quiet, hoping it would not carry into the other office as she offered her final gambit, “I will seek a position in Chamberlain, if I must.”

“You will not. An army wife has no business in a railroad town.”

“But I am a civilian, as you pointed out,” she argued.

“You are also an officer’s widow,” he exploded, not caring who heard. “As commander of this post, I try to do what is best for my men and their dependents. I have made my decision regarding your presence here and I expect you to concede gracefully.”

“Gracefully?” she repeated, rising from her chair. “I have conceded gracefully all my life. I’ve done as I was told. But this time, sir, both grace and docility are in short supply. I intend to stay in Kansas.”

The commander also stood. He leaned across the desk, his face dark with wrath. “Madam, I’ll load you onto the wagon myself, if I must. Indians run rampant along the Arkansas. My command could burn to the ground if even a spark gets out of hand in this wind. I cannot and will not be responsible for an unmarried, unattached woman.”

“Then I will take care of myself.” She swept from the office without a backward look. “Good day, Colonel.”

On the steps outside the office, Malachi Middlefield regarded his companion with concern. “What’s ailin’ you, boy? Your face is as white as a fish’s belly.”

“Took an arrow in the arm yesterday,” Injun Jack growled reluctantly. “I must’ve lost more blood than I thought.”

“Dad-blame it, Jack.” Dragging him into the shade, Malachi glared at him. “How come you didn’t mention that when you told me ‘bout Teddy meetin’ up with that Cheyenne?”

The brawny scout glared back, embarrassed by his weakness. “Because I’ve felt worse after poker games at Elvira’s.”

“Reckon that’s so.” The mule skinner grinned, momentarily distracted. “Cards, whiskey, a pretty gal—” Realizing he had been diverted, he broke off. “You might not hurt so much if you hadn’t throwed that nurse feller through the infirmary winda.”

“He was interfering with my bath.” Injun Jack straightened and drew a steadying breath. “I needed privacy.”

“You don’t git it, hollerin’ out the winda, wearin’ nothin’ but a bear’s teeth necklace and a towel. You dang near gave the major’s wife apoplexy.”

Malachi’s mirth was cut short when the door to the colonel’s office was thrown open and a petite female figure sailed out.

“Son of a—” The scout winced, catching the woman in his arms. “I mean, careful, ma’am.” The collision threw her against him, tilted her hoopskirt askew and knocked her bonnet lopsided.

“I’m terribly sorry.” Steadying herself with one hand against his chest, the woman straightened her bonnet with the other and stepped back.

“Well, well, the Yankee angel.”

Rebecca nearly groaned aloud. Shaken by her confrontation with the colonel, she did not know if she could face Injun Jack after what had happened between them at the hospital.

“Good morning, Mr. Bellamy,” she said stiffly, hazarding a look at him. Clean, shaved and wearing a clean shirt, he scarcely resembled the rugged man she had met yesterday.

One thing had not changed, however. His hands had found their way to her waist again and lingered there. Realizing her own hand rested on the front of his snowy shirt, she yanked it back and retreated.

“Mr. Middlefield, what an unexpected pleasure.” She beamed when she saw Malachi. “I didn’t know you had returned to Fort Chamberlain.”

Ducking his balding head, the teamster mumbled into his beard, “Got in last night. How are you, Mrs. Emerson?”

Jack frowned, taking note of her wedding band. He hadn’t seen it yesterday. And he hadn’t been looking for it just now when she had felt so nice in his arms. Mrs. Emerson, eh? Well, damn.

“Sorry to hear of your husband’s passin’, ma’am.” Malachi struggled with the formal words. “I ain’t had time for a proper call, but I aim to visit you soon as I can to pay my respects.”

“That’s very kind, Mr. Middlefield. I’ll look forward to it.” Rebecca favored him with another smile before turning to Jack. “How is your arm this morning, Mr. Bellamy?” she asked coolly.

“Better,” he answered, his tone just as aloof.

“And how is Private Greeley?”

“Sleeping, but Doc says his leg looks as well as can be expected.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “Thank you for your kindness to Teddy… and to me.”

She glanced up at him, alert for any sign of insinuation or mockery in his blue eyes, but he stared off across the parade ground and went on uncomfortably, “I suspect I wasn’t the easiest patient you ever had, though the closer I got to the bottom of my flask, the hazier things became.”

He didn’t remember what had happened, Rebecca realized, almost limp with relief. Then, irrationally, she felt a stab of disappointment. That kiss had shaken her to the soles of her boots and he didn’t even remember.

“I woke up this morning, almost as good as new,” the scout concluded, smiling and far too handsome and clear-eyed for her liking.

“If you gentlemen will excuse me—” she nodded briskly in farewell”—I must get home.”

“I’ll walk you,” Injun Jack informed her, offering his arm.

She balked. “No, thank you.” It was one thing to chat with him on the headquarters porch and quite another to be alone with him. What if he remembered, after all?

“Pardon me, Injun Jack.” Private Ballard appeared beside them. “Colonel Quiller wants to see you and he has ordered me to take Mrs. Emerson home. At once.”

The big scout’s jaw set belligerently. “Tell him I’ll—”

“Mr. Bellamy, you really should go to the colonel,” Rebecca blurted, grateful for the interruption. “After my conversation with him, I doubt he’s in the mood to be kept waiting.”

“He is pretty riled, sir.” The orderly stepped between them, nervous but insistent. “I’ll see her home.”

“I’m perfectly capable of finding my way across the parade ground alone in broad daylight, Private,” she cut in hotly, “and you may tell your commander as much. Good day, gentlemen.”

“Whatcha reckon Quiller said to that poor little widder?” Malachi mused as she marched away. “She’s usually got a downright sunny disposition.”

“The ‘poor little widder’ seems to have a temper, too,” Jack said with a chuckle. She had fire behind that cool, proper and— the idea crept up on him—soft exterior. Frowning thoughtfully, he went into the colonel’s office.

“Botheration,” Rebecca mumbled under her breath when she heard a shout behind her. Turning reluctantly, she allowed the adjutant to overtake her. “Good day, Lieutenant.”

“Isn’t it warm to be playing chase, Rebecca?” he grumbled as he crossed the quadrangle toward her. “I’ve been calling since you left headquarters. Didn’t you hear me?”

Handsome and dashing, Francis Porter was everything an adjutant should be, from the toes of his polished boots to his lush, waxed cavalry moustache. But just now that moustache drooped in the heat and his aristocratic face was flushed from exertion.

“I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t listening.”

“I guess you weren’t thinking either, wandering around without an escort,” he sighed, shaking his head indulgently. “Whatever shall I do with you, Becky, except see you home?”

“It’s really not necessary.”

“It’s most necessary.” Taking her hand, he placed it in the crook of his arm. “Don’t you know I want to take care of you?”

“You’ve been very kind to me since Paul’s death, Francis,” she said quickly, hoping to escape the inevitable.

“I could be kinder,” he persisted as they walked to Officers’ Row. “I’ve only just learned of your bill at the trading post.”

She glanced at him sharply, unwilling to ask how he knew.

“Paul, God rest him,” he continued, “had extravagant taste. You shouldn’t have to bear the burden alone. Let me help you.”

He had no idea what he was asking, Rebecca thought, shaking her head firmly. “You are a good friend, but no, thank you.”

“A friend,” he muttered. “You know how I feel about you, Becky. I can hardly believe you think you must seek employment to stay at Fort Chamberlain.”

“You heard about my conversation with the colonel?”

“It sounded more like an argument from where I was, on the other side of the partition.”

They walked in silence, Rebecca’s spirits sinking with every step. No doubt the gossip was already spreading. Everyone at the fort would know about the scene by nightfall. And everyone would be just as disapproving as Francis.

When they reached her house, the young officer turned to her. “I know Paul has been dead a short time, Becky, and I beg your forgiveness if my haste seems indecent. But surely you’ve deduced my intentions by now.”

Imagining she could feel her neighbor’s nosy stare from behind lace curtains, Rebecca tried to stop him, but once the lieutenant had begun, the words poured from him in a rush.

“Marry me and stay in Kansas. I’m sure the Old Man will grant permission, even though your mourning period is not over. As he told you, he wants what’s best for you.”

“Oh, Francis…” She hesitated, framing a tactful refusal. “You are kind, but it is too soon for me to remarry. Thank you, though, for your gallant offer.”

“Will you promise, at least, to consider my suit, Becky?”

“I promise,” she agreed, unwilling to hurt his feelings. How could she explain, when he regarded her so hopefully, that she would not marry again except for love?

“Then I will ask no more for now.” With a possessive smile, he carried her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Good day, Rebecca.”

“Good day.” Reclaiming her hand, she fled to the relative privacy of her quarters.