Читать книгу The Angel Of Devil's Camp - Lynna Banning, Lynna Banning - Страница 11

All the way up the hill, Tom could hear the sound of a woman crying. It cut into his belly like a shot of rotgut whiskey and made him blind with rage. He didn’t know why, but he’d never been able to stomach a woman’s tears.

When he could see the dark outline of the cabin in the moonlight, he slowed to a walk. If she could cry, she could breathe. That answered one question.

The other question—Why?—he answered when he stumbled over the carcass of a deer.

Someone had killed tomorrow’s supper. The shot must have scared the ginger out of her, but the thought of venison steaks made him smile. He stepped around the dead animal and headed for the glimmer of white on the porch ahead of him.

“Miss Hampton? It’s Tom Randall.”

When he stepped forward, she jerked upright. “Oh! Please come no farther, C-Colonel Randall. I am not p-properly attired.” She sounded like she had the hiccups.

Tom spun on one heel so his back was to her. “Who shot the deer?”

“I—I did,” she confessed between sobs. “At least I think I did. I had my eyes closed.”

Tom knelt to inspect the animal. “Mighty good shot, ma’am. Clean and true, right into the head.”

“Oh, the poor, dear thing. I meant only to scare it away, not kill it!”

Poor dear thing? He sneaked a look at her. Arms locked about her white-shrouded legs, she rocked back and forth, her forehead pressed against her knees.

“I feel just awful about shooting it. It had such big, soft eyes.”

Two things warred for Tom’s attention—the revolver lying beside her and her hair tumbling loose about her shoulders. He struggled to keep his mind on the gun.

“Where’d you learn to shoot?”

She choked back a sob. “My father taught me, before he went off to his military post. He said I had a g-good eye.”

“And a steady hand, it would appear. Miss Hampton, you might as well dry your tears and make the best of it. The boys’ll be grateful to you for supplying some good meat.”

“I—I will try.” She gazed at him with a stricken look. “I just feel so…mean!”

He stuffed down a chuckle. “You ever shoot anything before?”

She nodded. “I shot a Yankee once. In the backyard of the parsonage. He was after our last two chickens, you see, and I…I hit him in the shoulder. I offered to dress the wound, but he swore something dreadful and skedaddled over the back fence.”

So she’d lived in a parsonage, had she? A preacher’s daughter with good eyesight and guts. Now, why should that surprise him? All Southerners were murdering bastards hiding under a cloak of gentility. He’d learned that in Richmond. His jaw tightened.

“I hear somebody coming, Miss Hampton. You might want to put on a robe.”

Meggy scrambled to her feet. The colonel stood before her, both hands jammed in his trouser pockets. Mercy me, he wore no shirt!

She stared at the bare skin of his chest, at the muscles cording his broad shoulders. Never in her whole life had she seen a man without his shirt, not even Papa. She gulped. Even her intended, Mr. Peabody, had been laid out in his coffin fully dressed.

An odd, restless feeling crept over her as she gazed at the colonel’s tall frame. Why, he looked strong enough to—

Sergeant O’Malley crashed out of the trees and into the clearing. “For the love of God, Tom, what’s goin’ on? I heard a shot, and when I found your tent empty…well, I thought maybe you’d—What’s this, now?”

The Irishman stared down at the dead stag. “Well, I’ll be smithereened! You killed us a deer, Tom.”

“I didn’t exactly…”

Meggy slipped inside the front door and listened to Tom’s voice floating from the porch. “Think we can dress it out here?”

“Nah. Too dark. Let’s lug it down to the cookhouse. I’ll go rustle up Fong and some other help. Maybe those two rascally Claymore lads you took on.”

She held her breath. Tom had sidestepped telling Mr. O’Malley who had killed the animal. True, she didn’t want to confess the deed, but she doubted the colonel would understand why. No Yankee soldier could fathom Southern sensibilities.

She tiptoed to the counter and rummaged in the pile of garments for her night robe, drew it on over her shimmy and underdrawers and tied it about her waist with a jerk.

No Federal officer she’d ever encountered paid the slightest attention to the feelings of civilians. When the Northern army overran Chester County, the soldiers had swaggered and shouted and stolen her mother’s ruby ear-bobs. Why, they did not even look like gentlemen. Even the men she and her sisters had tended in hospital were hopelessly ill-mannered and unlettered.

Through the open doorway she watched the two men drag the deer away from her porch. Then Mr. O’Malley tramped off down the hill toward the cookhouse and the colonel settled himself on the planks, his back toward her.

A long minute dragged by. Meggy became acutely aware of the noises around her, the breeze sighing through the treetops, the low hoo…hoo of an owl. The uneven breathing of the man sitting not three feet away from her.

What was he thinking?

The silence hung on until she thought she would scream. All of a sudden his low voice made her jump.

“Might as well go on back to bed, Miss Hampton. We’ll haul the carcass down to the cookhouse so you won’t have to look at it in the morning.”

“Thank you,” she managed, in a tight voice. But she stood frozen to the spot. Why could she not move?

Because…Meggy’s entire body trembled. Was the sight of a half-naked man outside her front door so disturbing?

Certainly not! It was because she was a tiny bit afraid of him.

Because she disliked him.

Because he, well, he was a Yankee.

Because he was a man.

Her heart hammered. Most definitely not! She put no stock whatsoever in such things. She and Walter Peabody had contracted a union of souls, not bodies. She always wondered at her sisters, who had grown dreamy-eyed and absentminded when they were smitten by some young gentleman. Oh, Meggy, just the sound of his voice gives me the shivers!

She had no time for such sentimental nonsense.

Besides that, she most certainly harbored no such feelings about a man she had known just half a day and was a Yankee besides.

She was tired, that was it. And overwrought. Her nerves were frazzled. This entire day—and night—was a dreadful nightmare, and any moment she would wake up.

“Go to bed,” he repeated.

“I would,” she murmured, “if I could make my feet move.”

He rose and half turned in her direction. “Are you all right?”

“No. I—I mean, yes. Of course.”

He stepped up onto the porch. “Need help?”

His movement toward her jolted her into action. She inched backward until her legs touched the cot against the far wall.

“Miss Hampton?”

Her derriere sank onto the blanket. With a supreme effort she closed her eyes to blot out the bronzed skin of his bare chest, his sinewy shoulders and arms. Mary Margaret, you are hallucinating!

Voices came up the hill. Someone—it must be Colonel Randall—stepped across the porch and pulled her front door shut.

“Tomorrow…”

She heard his words as clearly as if they were spoken at her bedside.

“Tomorrow, Mick, I want a lock put on this door.”

Oh, yes, Meggy thought with relief. A lock was exactly what she needed. A lock would surely keep her safe.

By the time Meggy woke, the sun was high overhead in a sky so blue and clear it looked like a cerulean-painted china bowl. She breathed in the warm, pine-scented air and bolted upright. Mercy, she’d overslept!

With hurried motions she washed her face and arms, pulled on her blue sateen skirt, a white waist and a plain cotton apron, and bound up her hair in a neat black net.

Cautiously she cracked open the front door. No sign of men. No sign of the deer, save for a mashed-down patch of dry grass. Skirting the area, she gathered small sticks and an apronful of pinecones, then started a fire in the wood stove. When it caught, she fed it pine chips apparently left over from construction of her cabin and small sections of a tree stump that had been chopped up and left in chunks. Then she rolled up her sleeves and set to work.

Using a smooth glass bottle of Molly More Rosewater as a rolling pin, she pressed the lump of dough into a round flat circle, laid it in the skillet she’d borrowed from the cookhouse, and crimped the edges with her thumb and forefinger. With the pocketknife she always carried in her reticule, she peeled the apples she’d taken from Fong’s pantry, sliced them into the pie shell and sprinkled her pocketful of sugar over the top. A dollop of molasses would have been nice, but she could manage without it. It was one thing to carry a tea towel full of flour and butter, but a handful of sticky syrup?

When the oven was hot, she shoved the skillet in, rinsed off her hands and busied herself gathering more wood to replenish the fire while the pie baked.

Oh, it did smell heavenly, even without the cinnamon she usually sprinkled over the apples. The sweet-tart scent made her mouth water. Papa used to say she could make a pie so tender and delicious it was like an angel’s breath melting in his mouth.

To her sister Charlotte the good Lord gave the gift of words. To Hope and Charity, keen eyesight and skill with a crochet hook. To Addie, a singing voice that could reduce a congregation to tears.

But to me, Mary Margaret, God gave the ability to cook.

When the pie was golden-brown, she wrapped her apron around her hand, slid the bubbling confection out of the oven and set the skillet on the windowsill to cool.

Unable to stop herself, she twirled about the room until she was giddy. It was a silly thing to do, but at this moment she didn’t care one bit. Her daring venture would be a success, she just knew it!

Off in the distance she heard the crash and thump of a falling tree. Somewhere in the woods beyond were twelve hungry loggers. All she needed was a bit of patience and the Lord’s own luck.

She eyed the cooling pie and smiled.

Meggy dipped her bare toe in the slow-moving river and shivered. She didn’t care what Colonel Randall said, she desperately wanted a bath and a chance to wash her clothes and her hair. Her scalp tingled at the thought of soapsuds. With the men out cutting trees, she couldn’t see the sense in advising the colonel of her plans, as he had requested. What could he possibly care about her personal habits?

Despite the bright sun beating down on it, the water was ice cold. She pulled her arms in close to her body. Rivers at home in Chester County were generally tepid by late summer. Out here in the West, everything was colder, bigger, steeper, rougher. And more frightening.

She waded in until the clear water covered her knees, then submerged the bundle of clothes she carried and tossed a bar of rose-scented soap on top of them. Standing naked in the shallows, she scrubbed her black traveling dress, two petticoats, her underdrawers, even her shimmy. Soft, warm air brushed against her skin, and she sighed with satisfaction. Her apple pie was cooling in the window, and now her laundry was done.

She wrung out the sopping garments, waded to shore and draped them over a sun-drenched chokecherry bush. By the time she’d washed her hair and dunked her hot, sticky body in the cool river water, her clothes would be dry enough to put on.

Bending at the waist, she unpinned her hair and sloshed water over the heavy chestnut waves, then worked up a lather with her fingers. Oh, how blessed it was to feel clean again! She took a deep breath, leaned forward to dive into the blue-green water, and froze.

Voices floated from the woods behind her. Men’s voices.

Good heavens, the logging crew! Meggy clapped one hand over her mouth to suppress a squeal. She plunged in neck deep just in time to see Colonel Randall stride into view at the head of a straggly line of slow-footed workers. Two loggers, the Swede and the plump, sweet-faced man called Orrin, carried a two-man crosscut saw across their shoulders.

Dear God, the colonel was heading straight for the chokecherry bush! He would see her garments and know in an instant she had disobeyed his orders. Worse, she was stuck out here in this freezing water with her hair piled up under a tower of soapsuds.

She sank into the water up to her chin, and her teeth began to chatter.

She watched him approach, saw him hesitate as the chokecherry came into his view. Her bent knees began to ache.

Suddenly the colonel quickened his pace. Meggy groaned. He had spied her dress, her petticoats, her…Oh, how perfectly mortifying!

Barely breaking stride, he gathered up the items, rolling them into a wet ball as he walked, and tucked them under one arm. Without a backward glance he kept moving, staying well ahead of the men lagging behind him.

When their voices died away, Meggy dunked her head under the surface and swam to shore. Her skin sprouted goose bumps as big as June bugs as she waded out of the river. Heaven help her, she had not one single scrap to clothe herself in except for her shoes! How was she to get back to her cabin?

In disbelief, she circled the chokecherry bush. How could he have left her in such a fix? He was a mean, no-count lowlife if ever she’d met one. Imagine, taking advantage of a helpless…

Something caught her eye, and she jerked to a halt. There, in the crotch of that young maple tree—what was that dark roll poking out?

Her clothes! Wadded up in a ball and wet as rainwater.

She snatched them up and with shaking hands pulled on the dripping garments, starting with her underdrawers. Her skin shrank at the feel of the damp, clingy muslin.

That dreadful man!

Every step of the way back to the cabin she rehearsed the stinging words she would level at the colonel when she confronted him.

Tom leaned back on the plank porch, supporting his weight on one elbow. He’d sent the crew on ahead with the promise of venison steaks for dinner, and now he waited for Mary Margaret Hampton. He worked his thumbnail into the wood, outlining a curved half-moon that looked like the letter C.

C for cantankerous. C for crazy. Chuckle-headed. Calico-hungry. All that and more. His crew was an obstreperous bunch of misfits, and it had taken half the season to turn them into a team. He’d almost lost another man today when that idiot bullwhacker Sam Turner got to showing off and one of the young Claymore boys slipped under the mule team.

On top of that, he was saddled with a cotton-headed female. By damn, he was in no mood for any nonsense, especially not from a little slip of a woman whose sense of independence outweighed her brain power.

When she appeared on the trail that led up to the cabin, Tom lifted his head. She marched along the path with jerky steps, holding her wet, drooping skirt up out of the dust. Her eyes glinted an icy green.

“Evening, Miss Hampton.”

She stopped short and pressed her lips together. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you. Thought you might be along pretty soon. I see you found your dress and…things.”

“Found and donned, no thanks to you. Whatever possessed you to take them in the first place?”

“Had to,” he said quietly. “Behind me were eleven men who haven’t seen a woman in six months, let alone one standing in the woods buck naked. What do you think they’d do if they stumbled across some damn fool’s frilly underwear hangin’ on a bush?”

“Avert their eyes and walk on, of course. As any gentleman would.”

Tom rose. “My men aren’t gentlemen, Miss Hampton. They’re rough and they’re rowdy and they’re all male. I wouldn’t go poking at this particular hornet’s nest if I were you.”

“I was most certainly not poking—”

“You were taking a bath in the river. Against my orders.”

She dropped the folds of her skirt clenched in her fingers and propped her fists on her hips. “You saw me!”

“Couldn’t miss you. Hair all sudsed up with white foam, you looked like a frosted cake floating out there in the middle of the river. I gathered up your clothes so the men wouldn’t get interested in finding the owner.”

“Frosted cake! Well, I never!”

“That water’s crystal clear,” he said with a grin. “The rest of you looked like a shriveled up corn doll.”

“The rest of me?”

“Miss Hampton, don’t take another bath without telling me. Like I said before, I’ll post a guard.”

Speechless, Meggy stared into the man’s face for a full minute. A muscle under his eye jerked. “A guard,” she echoed.

“A guard.”

All at once she became aware of how cold and wet she was. Her clammy underdrawers stuck to her thighs and calves; her damp shimmy clung to her back and chest like a coating of cold syrup. Her petticoats dripped water down her ankles and into her shoes. And her dress…well, it felt for all the world like a heavy, cold shroud.

“Go inside,” he ordered. “You’re shivering. Get out of those wet things.”

“I am n-not s-shivering.” She had to work hard to keep her voice steady.

He rolled his eyes toward the treetops. “Go!”

Without thinking, Meggy snapped her heels together and saluted. “Am I dismissed, then, Colonel?”

Without waiting for a reply, she hoisted her skirt up a few inches and planted one foot on the porch. With a little lift she attempted to heave herself upward, but the weight of her wet clothes was more than she’d bargained for. She stumbled against the edge.

Tom watched her struggle for a moment, then moved behind her, placed his hands about her waist and lifted her onto the porch. The feel of her body under his hands, the whiff of roses that came from her hair sent a red-hot arrow straight to his groin.

With an exaggerated sniff, she stomped across the planks to the front door, yanked it open and banged it shut behind her.

“Headstrong and excitable,” he muttered as he clomped down off the porch. “She sure gets an arch in her back over the damnedest things.”

On the other hand, she might have been raised on prunes and proverbs, but when she closed her mouth, she was all woman.

“That being the case…” He laughed out loud as he strode down the hill toward the safety of his tent.

“The next time she flames up over something, I guess I’ll have to set a backfire.”