Читать книгу Gift Of The Heart - Miranda Jarrett - Страница 11

“That—that would not have been necessary,” stammered Rachel, her heart thumping almost painfully within her breast. She didn’t doubt for an instant that he would have killed Alec if she’d struggled or screamed for help, and it terrified her to think of how unwittingly she’d risked Alec’s life. “My husband’s brother can be a bully, true, but nothing more.”

“Nothing?” Slowly the man lowered the rifle, his unflinching gaze never breaking with Rachel’s. “That wasn’t how it appeared to me.”

“Appearances aren’t always what they seem,” she said quickly, too quickly. In all the foolish fantasies she’d woven about this man to pass the hours at his bedside, she’d never imagined him with this kind of deadly, intense calm that came from deep within. “I don’t believe Alec would ever do either Billy or me any real harm.”

“No, Mama, he would hurt us! You said!” piped up Billy indignantly. “Uncle Alec’d hurt you an’ me an’—an’ him! You said!”

“Hush, Billy, no one’s going to hurt anybody,” scolded Rachel, secretly thankful to have a reason to look away from the man near the window. Now, she thought with dismay, if she could only find one for Billy, as well; she’d never seen his face shine with such endless admiration and awe as it did now for this wonderful new champion. She hung the musket back on its pegs and pulled down the narrow ladder to the loft. “You’ve had adventure enough for one day. Now please take Blackie upstairs and play there until supper.”

Billy ducked his chin stubbornly. “Don’t have stairs.”

Rachel sighed with exasperation. “Oh, I know, it’s only a ladder, not a staircase, but regardless I want you up there directly.”

The boy’s chin sank lower, into open rebellion. “Don’t wanna go. Wanna stay here.” He pointed at the man near the window. “With him.”

“Billy,” said Rachel sternly, desperate to forestall the tantrum she felt sure was brewing. “Please go to the loft so I can speak to Mr. Ryder.”

“Don’t wanna go, Mama!” The little boy’s voice shrilled higher, almost to a wail. “Don’t wanna!”

“Of course you don’t, lad,” said the man softly, so softly that Billy immediately stopped arguing so he could hear. “Why should you want to go up there when everything that’s interesting is down here?”

Billy’s brow stayed furrowed, unconvinced, and for extra emphasis he stamped his moccasined foot. “Don’t wanna.”

“Billy Lindsey!” Mortified by the child’s behavior, Rachel took a step forward to haul him bodily up the ladder before he did anything worse.

But before she could the man bent down on one knee, leaning heavily on the rifle, to be closer to Billy’s level. “You don’t want to go, Billy, and I can’t say I blame you. Well and good. But there’s plenty of things in this life that we must do that we don’t want to. While your pa’s away, you’re the man here, aren’t you?”

Miraculously the stubbornness vanished from Billy’s face, replaced by the same unabashed worship that Rachel had noticed earlier. “I’m a big boy,” he announced proudly. “I’m Mama’s best boy, an’ I help her!”

“I reckoned you are,” said the man, nodding wisely as if he’d expected nothing less. “That’s why you won’t want to hurt her the way your uncle Alec tried to.”

“Not Mama!” Anxiously Billy glanced at Rachel. “I’ll never hurt her!”

“You’re hurting her now,” said the man mildly. “Hurting her by being so thickheaded about going to the loft the way she asked. She wants to be proud of you, but instead you’re making her sad and shamed.”

Without stopping to answer, Billy raced to the table to grab his toy horse, threw his arms around Rachel’s knees for a moment of reassurance and apology, then clambered up the ladder to the loft overhead, disappearing with one final grin over his shoulder for the man who’d explained everything so neatly.

“You have a way with him, Mr. Ryder,” said Rachel grudgingly, her arms folded tightly over her chest. She told herself again that she didn’t wish to see Billy become too attached to his new hero, especially since he had a price on his head. But if she was honest with herself she knew she was also a bit jealous of how swiftly Billy had listened to someone other than her. “Though as I told you before, I’d rather you had as little to do with Billy as you can.”

He sighed, glancing up the ladder to where the boy had disappeared. “By my lights, you needed a bit of help.”

Rachel bristled. “I assure you Billy’s not usually so ill-mannered.”

“Ill-mannered or high-spirited, it’s all the same to mamas, isn’t it?” he said. “I was a boy once myself, and it doesn’t take too much to remember how it was.”

He was still leaning on his rifle, kneeling at her feet in a way that she found oddly unsettling. Because she had taken his own shirt to clean and mend, he was wearing an old shirt of William’s, the too-short sleeves turned up over his thick-boned wrists, and that disconcerted her, too. The shirt belonged to her husband, she reminded herself fiercely, yet still she noticed how the worn cambric strained to cover the unfamiliar shoulders beneath it, and tried not to look at the triangle of dark, curling hair framed by the shirt’s open throat.

“You haven’t been a boy for a good long time,” she said, and immediately flushed guiltily, realizing too late how she’d as much as confessed her indecent observations. Lord, how bold would the man think she was? “That is, Mr. Ryder, I meant there’s a world of difference between you and Billy.”

He nodded, saying nothing more. Beneath the ragged growth of beard he might have been smiling up at her, and at her expense, too.

“You don’t have to stay there on the floor, you know,” she said stiffly, her cheeks still on fire. “You can stand now.”

“I’m not sure I can.” What she’d feared was a smile turned into more of a grimace as he tried to push himself back up to his feet. “Seems I’m fit for little more than impressing boys.”

“Oh—oh!” Rachel hurried to his side, slipping her shoulder beneath his arm to help guide him across the room to the bed, then darted back to bring him a cup of water.

“How thoughtless I’ve been!” she said contritely as she watched him drink. “You must forgive me, please, for—”

“Ask yourself for forgiveness, not me,” he said sharply, his eyes suddenly snapping despite the pallor of his face. “Consider what your brother-in-law must have told you about me. Your sympathy could have cost you your life, coming so close to me like that. You should have kept your musket until I’d given up my rifle.”

“Oh, bother and fuss! As if I put any stock in what Alec tells me!” Rachel tossed her head indignantly. “I decide my own mind. You’d never have walked two steps without my help.”

“And that’s two times this day alone that your deciding’s made you careless,” he said relentlessly. “If you want to go on living by yourself out here, you’ll have to do better.”

“While you, sir, would do better to learn gratitude to those who help you.” With an angry flurry of her skirts, Rachel turned her back to him and returned to her neglected baking. Left so long, the dough on the table had begun to rise into a lopsided lump toward the warmth of the open hearth, and with her fist she smacked it down.

Watching her, Jamie swore softly and leaned back against the headboard. He hadn’t meant to be so hard on her like that, but she had been dangerously trusting, both with him and the man she said was her husband’s brother. He’d rather make her angry than keep silent.

Absently he ran his fingers back and forth along the rifle’s barrel. He wondered how she’d come to this little log house, where she was as out of place as the gilded bull’s-eye mirror hanging over the crude stone fireplace. Her speech, her self-assurance, even her cheerfully ignorant trust, belonged in some elegant city parlor, not here. He remembered the wealthy daughters and wives of merchants he’d seen riding in their carriages through the Philadelphia streets—beautiful, expensive women in rich imported silk and kerseymere. She’d been born one of them; even the rough linsey-woolsey skirts she wore now couldn’t hide that. But what kind of fool of a husband would bring a gently bred lady like her to the wilderness?

She was putting her whole body—and her anger—into thumping the dough, bending over the table far enough to give him a clear view of her ankles, neat and trim even in woolen stockings. Humiliating though it had been to ask for her help, he’d learned again how softly curved her body felt against his, how readily she fit against him, and he’d learned that she found him attractive, too. He’d seen that shy but eager interest in the eyes of women enough times before to recognize it, though the devil only knew how she’d feel that way when he must look like a scarecrow complete with a mouth full of straw. Perhaps, he thought wryly, she had been alone too long.

But was that reason enough for her to have shielded him from her husband’s brother the way she had?

“How much did your brother-in-law tell you?” he asked softly.

Her back stiffened, but she didn’t turn to face him. “I told you already that I don’t heed what Alec says.”

“I didn’t ask you what you believed. I asked how much he told you.”

She swung around, her black brows drawing downward at being challenged. “He told me, Mr. Ryder, that you are one of the Tory Rangers serving under Colonel Walter Butler.”

His expression didn’t change. “As I recall, your husband fights with the rebel army. I’ll warrant that makes me your enemy as well as his.”

She raised her chin with the same stubbornness he’d seen in the boy. “At present you are a man who needed my assistance. You’ve trouble enough without me turning you away into the snow on account of your politics.”

“I’m caught in my enemy’s territory with the wind whistling through the hole in my shoulder.” His mouth twisted bleakly. “Oh, aye, that’s trouble enough.”

“Not quite.” Rachel leaned closer, lowering her voice so Billy, doubtless eavesdropping overhead, wouldn’t hear. “It’s worse than that. Somehow you’ve managed to cross your Colonel Butler badly enough that he’s offering a bounty on your scalp. Twenty dollars, according to Alec.”

“Twenty dollars?” Jamie’s heart plummeted. He’d never dreamed Butler would offer such a reward. Twenty dollars would set every penniless rogue in the land on his trail.

Rachel nodded. “Twenty it was. Where money’s concerned, I’ve never had reason to doubt Alec.”

“But you doubt the rest?”

“I make my own decisions. I told you that already, too.” She noticed how he’d neither denied nor confirmed Alec’s story, and she wondered uneasily whether she’d been wrong to trust him as much as she had. As he’d told her himself, he was her enemy. “Whether it’s twenty dollars or forty pieces of silver, Mr. Ryder, I’m not in the habit of putting a price on any man’s life.”

“Thank you.” It didn’t seem enough for what she’d done, but he was afraid that anything more would sound false. “And the name’s Jamie Ryder, without the trappings. You can save the ‘sirs’ and ‘misters’ for the next gentleman who wanders into your barn.”

But Rachel didn’t smile, considering instead the easy familiarity he was proposing as she turned back toward her work table. There were already too few barriers between them, crowded together like this in her home’s single room, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to give up the fragile formality of that “mister.”

He waited, puzzled by her silence. “There, now,” he said gruffly. “I’ve handed you leave to call me by my given name, but it seems instead I’ve offered you some sort of offense.”

“Oh, no, it’s not that,” said Rachel hastily as she moved to the hearth to lift the iron pot with their supper closer to the coals. She lifted the lid of the pot to stir the contents while she thought, brushing her hand briskly before her face against the rush of fragrant steam. His insistence on no formal title might have another, very different explanation. She could know for certain, if she dared risk making a fool of herself.

And it was, she decided, a risk worth taking. With a brief, nervous smile, she glanced back at him over her shoulder.

“Does thee believe that thy appetite could be tempted by a plate of stew?” she asked as cheerfully as she could. “To me thee seems well enough for heartier fare.”

He relaxed and set the rifle in his lap to one side, his mouth watering already from the smell alone. “Thee couldn’t keep me from thy table now, as thee knows perfectly—”

He broke off, realizing too late how neatly she’d tricked him. Butler must have described him in every detail when he’d posted his blasted reward.

“Thee’s a clever woman,” he said dryly. “Thee knew to use stewed rabbit and onions as bait to catch a poor feeble invalid weary of gruel.”

“There’s nothing feeble about you that time and stew won’t cure.” She concentrated on spooning the hot stew into a pewter bowl, avoiding the reproach that she knew would be on his face. She had tricked him, true enough, but now she had her answer, too.

Carefully she wrapped a cloth around the bowl to hold in the heat, and brought it to him in the bed. “Don’t eat so fast that you burn yourself,” she cautioned. “And mind you don’t spill. I don’t want to consider what sort of hideous mess that would make on the coverlet.”

“My, my, but your concern’s alarming,” he said as he took the bowl and balanced it on his knees. “I think I liked the plain speech better.”

She dragged a chair closer to sit at his bedside to keep him company while he ate. “My grandmother was a Friend, and I always liked to listen to her talk. She could make even a scolding sound special. While you were ill, you often spoke that way, too.”

He stared at her, mute with horror, while the stew turned tasteless in his mouth.

God preserve him, what else had he babbled to her? Had he told her of the dull whistle that a tomahawk makes as it whips through the air, the sickening thud when it buries deep in its mark? In the grip of the fever had he raved about the smoke from the burning houses, the screams of the dying or the last frantic wails for mercy that had filled the early-morning air? Had he confessed to her what he’d seen, what he’d done in the empty name of his king, and failed to do for his own conscience?

To Rachel it seemed his face shuttered in an instant, closing her out as his eyes turned cold and empty. Her curiosity had done this, she thought with an inward shiver, her infernal curiosity had driven away the man who’d so gently teased Billy, and left her instead with another whose face was as hard as if carved from the same granite as the cliffs in the valley.

A face that belonged to one of Butler’s Rangers, to one of her enemy, to a man who, weak though he was, could still load and aim a rifle with terrifying accuracy.

“It wasn’t what you said, but how,” she said, struggling to explain herself. “I didn’t mean it as an insult, you know. In this part of New York, there are so few Friends that I found your words remarkable.”

“And you thought I might have a Quaker grandmother, too?” He forced himself to make his manner light, to lift the carved horn spoon dripping with gravy again and again to his lips as if nothing had changed.

If she knew the truth, she could not sit here with him, not this close. No decent woman could. Butler’s reward would be nothing compared to her horror if she knew the truth. With luck, she never would, at least not until he was gone from her life.

She shook her head, her carnelian earbobs swinging. “I thought you were a Friend yourself,” she said, almost wistfully. “Even with you dressed as you were, and carrying the rifle and a knife.”

“You’re right enough there,” he said wearily. “No decent, godly Friend would carry a weapon of any sort to be used against another man.”

“My grandmother wouldn’t allow guns anywhere in her house, not even for hunting game. Not that there was much to shoot on an island, anyway.” She tried to smile in the face of his still-grim expression. “So I misjudged thee, and thee has no Quaker grandmother after all?”

“Nay, she’s there in my past. Grandmother and grandfather, father and mother, and all manner of cousins.” He stared down at the bowl in his hands, sorrowfully remembering too much of a life that was forever gone. “Because my whole family belonged to the Society of Friends, I was a birthright member of our Meeting, too. But—now I’m not much of anything.”

“Ah.” Solemnly she nodded again, and with her fingertips smoothed her hair around her ears. She could understand that. There were days—too many days, and nights—when she believed she wasn’t much of anything, either. “I suppose I believed you were a Friend because I wanted you to be. It made you easier to help if you didn’t belong to either side. Not that it matters now, of course.”

He shrugged his uninjured shoulder, volunteering nothing more. Though she could understand his reticence, she wasn’t used to it in men, especially not after William, and it made her uncomfortable.

“My grandmother was turned out of her Meeting,” she said, determined to fill in the silence. “For marrying a man who wasn’t a Friend. It was quite a scandal at the time, mostly because she wasn’t the least bit contrite.”

“If she was anything like you, then I’m not surprised she was turned out of her Meeting.”

Rachel looked up sharply, so ready to defend herself that Jamie very nearly laughed.

“I didn’t intend that as an insult, either,” he said softly. And he didn’t. He remembered the girls in Meeting as dutifully demure, shrouded in sober gowns with their eyes downcast beneath their bonnets. This one, with her vivid coloring and green eyes and swinging black hair, would have shone like an irresistible beacon in their midst, and he would have followed. He’d always had a fondness—a weakness, according to his father—for worldly women; it had brought him no end of trouble when he’d been younger, before the war, and he didn’t want to consider what could happen now if he wasn’t careful.

“I didn’t take your words as an insult,” she said quickly.

“No?”

“No.” She shook her head again for extra emphasis, loose strands of her black hair drifting about her face. “How could I? My grandmother was a very fine, gracious woman.”

“Then I’m honored that you imagined I’d be like her,” he said with the perfect degree of bland politeness.

“I did?” she asked, baffled. This man with the rifle cradled beside him on the bed had precious little in common with her peaceable, silver-haired grandmother.

“Aye, me. If you imagined I was a Friend, and the only one of the lot you seem to know well was your paragon of a grandmother, then it stands to reason that you believed that I was a paragon, too. At least, you did until I opened my eyes and my mouth.” It had been a long, long time since he’d teased anyone like this, especially a girl this pretty, and he surprised himself by doing it now. “Mightily flattering, that.”

“I suppose it is,” said Rachel faintly, not quite sure what had just happened. She’d rather thought he was flattering her, not the other way around, and the extra spark in those blue eyes wasn’t at all reassuring.

Jamie took another bite of the stew while he collected his wayward thoughts. What the devil was he doing, anyway? Was it some lingering fever from his wound, or the warm food in his belly, or the hot flush on her cheeks? He was endlessly grateful she couldn’t read his mind, or she’d realize how wrong she’d been to judge him safe simply because of that grandmother of hers. Himself, he’d been born a Friend, but hardly a saint.

He fiddled with the spoon between his fingers. “Though you flatter me, aye, you keep the advantage. You know my name, but you haven’t told me yours.”

Rachel’s cheeks grew hot. “It’s Rachel. Rachel Sparhawk Lindsey.”

He liked to see her blush, especially over something as foolish as her name, and though he knew he’d no right to do it, he held his silence a moment longer to savor her discomfiture. Strange how she clung to her maiden name, and stranger still that her husband permitted such a thing.

“Well, then, Mistress Lindsey,” he said at last, “a fine good morning to you, and pleased I am to make your acquaintance.”

Her cheeks grew warmer still. He might not say much, but what he did say seemed to disconcert her more than all of William’s grand speeches put together. Not that she intended to let him get the better of her. She couldn’t afford to do that, not for her sake or for Billy’s.

“If you wish no titles for yourself, Jamie Ryder,” she said with determined composure, “then I can live without being called ‘Mistress.’”

“As you please, Rachel Lindsey.” He liked the sound of the name on his tongue, just as he’d liked hearing his on her lips. He had guessed she’d be called something more elegant, more exotic, the way she was herself, but now he’d never imagine her as anything other than Rachel. Rachel, Rachel Lindsey. Rachel Sparhawk Lindsey. Lord, when was the last time he’d gone moony over a woman’s name?

“Rachel Lindsey, Rachel Lindsey,” he said again as he let his bemusement slide drowsily across his face. “You wanted to trust me when I was dead to the world. But do you trust me now, I wonder?”

She didn’t hesitate at all. “Not in the least.”

“Good lass,” he murmured. “Not only beautiful, but wise you are, too, Rachel Lindsey. Don’t you ever trust me, not for a moment.”

Then he smiled, his whole face lightening, and the sudden, devastating warmth of it was enough to steal Rachel’s breath away and her wits, as well. Oh, she was right not to trust him, and it had nothing to do with wars or Tories or long-barreled rifles. If he could do this to her when he was weak and ill, what havoc could he bring when he’d recovered?

Swiftly she stood and reached to take the empty bowl from him, being sure that their fingers didn’t touch.

“You will understand, then,” she said as she briskly carried the bowl back to the table and away from the tempting power of that smile, “that while you’re welcome to stay as long as you need to recover, I also expect you to leave when you’re well. If Alec guesses you were here, he may be back, and I daresay others will come, too, once they’ve heard of the reward. Hard money’s scarce in this county, especially twenty dollars.”

She swallowed hard, longing for him to say something in return. “I have to think of Billy,” she said, hoping she sounded firm, not strident. “With William away, life is difficult enough for us as it is. Surely you must understand that.”

Still he didn’t answer. Impatiently she wiped her palms on her apron and turned to face him again. “Surely you must see my—”

But he wasn’t going to see anything. His eyes were closed, and he was fast asleep, the hint of his smile still lingering on his lips.

With an exasperated sigh, Rachel collected his powder horn and bullet pouch where he’d left them beside the window and set them beside the bed. Gingerly she eased the rifle away from him and laid it, too, on the floorboards. Perhaps letting him keep the gun was not the wisest thing she’d done, but still she sensed it was in her favor. She would put off changing the dressing until morning. Sleep now would be the best thing for him. At last she drew the coverlet over his shoulders, tucking it protectively around him the same way she had when he’d been so sick.

The same, yet different, the way everything between them had changed in little more than an hour’s time. There wasn’t any “same” left now, and the Lord only knew what would happen next.

“Oh, Mama, is he asleep again?” asked Billy mournfully as he leaned over the edge of the loft.

“Rest’s the one thing now that will help make him well.” She glanced upward, wondering if the boy had been there all along as she’d suspected. “Come down and wash up for supper.”

But now that Billy had her attention, he was in no hurry to move, instead leaning on his elbows as he stared down at the sleeping man. “You said he had to go, Mama,” he said accusingly. “You said he couldn’t stay.”

“Oh, Billy, sweetheart, it’s not up to me,” she said unhappily. “I know he’s been very kind to you, but he doesn’t belong here. Once he’s better, he must return to his own family and friends. I’m sure they miss him very much, and they’ll be glad to see he’s well again.”

“Don’t want him to go,” said Billy, more wistful than stubborn. He hugged Blackie closer, resting his chin on the horse’s worn back. “He made Uncle Alec go away.”

“Not really, love. Mr. Ryder was watching, but that was all. Uncle Alec left on his own.”

“Not ‘Mr. Ryder,’ Mama,” corrected Billy patiently. “It’s Jamie. An’ Jamie made Uncle Alec go away.”

“Well, then, Jamie didn’t make your uncle go home. Uncle Alec didn’t even know anyone else was in our house.”

Unconvinced, Billy shook his head, and Rachel knew exactly what he meant. She might not trust Jamie Ryder, but she had believed him when he said he’d do all he could to keep her and Billy from harm. Why else would she have put his rifle where he’d find it as soon as he woke?

“Uncle Alec’s bad,” continued Billy steadfastly, “an’ Jamie’s good, an’ I like him, Mama, an’ I want him to stay here.”

“Oh, Billy, that’s simply not possible, you see, because he—because we—” She broke off, searching vainly for the words to explain her reasons to a child. She looked back at the man in her bed, his face relaxed and boyish in sleep. How could she hope to explain how she felt about Jamie to Billy when she couldn’t explain it to herself?

“It’s simply not possible, Billy,” she said wistfully. “Jamie must leave as soon as he can. But I like him, too, Billy. I like him just fine.”