“The truth, the tree without the bark on it, so to speak?”
“Yes, the truth, if you please.”
“I don’t know why the Indians attacked us. They shouldn’t have. It is not in their nature to do things like that. I cannot believe it was simply because this Chatca saw your lovely eyes and couldn’t live without you.”
Chauncey closed her eyes a moment, memory of her conversations with Cricket playing through her mind. “I remember Cricket telling me that there would be trouble.”
“With you in the vicinity, I can well understand her concern!”
“Will you always mock me and make me laugh?”
“I will certainly try.” He stretched out on his back beside her, pillowing his head on his arms. “Do you know what it was like? I was as helpless as a baby for that entire day, my mind bleary, my body shaking like a leaf in the wind. And then I couldn’t find you. I remembered every mean word I’d tossed out at you.”
“At least you didn’t have a terrifying Indian wanting to make you his wife!”
“All you had to do was tell him that you were already married to the most perverse man in the state.”
She giggled and immediately regretted it.
He turned onto his side, facing her. “Easy, love,” he said, lightly stroking his fingers over her jaw. He saw her lashes flutter downward as she closed her eyes, not wanting him, he knew, to see her pain. “Please,” she whispered between gritted teeth. “Talk to me.”
“When I was in England in fifty-one, the Duke and Duchess of Graffton were dead set on marrying me off. I swear to you that I must have attended every soiree, ball, masquerade, and formal dinner in London. There were so many debutantes, all dressed in virginal white, all of them anxious to meet the rich American and simper at him. Lord, what time we would have saved had you only been in London then. You would have abducted me, ravished my poor body, and made an honest man of me.”
“Yes, I would have.”
“I was even presented to the queen, a plump little lady who had the nauseating habit of continually saying ‘we’ this and ‘we’ that. As for her Albert, I found him so stiff and formal that I was certain he’d break if he tried to stand against a strong wind. I suppose I was something of a two-month wonder, this barbarian from the wilds of California who’d struck gold and made his fortune. Do you know that one old fellow—Lord Fanshaw, I believe his name was—practically offered to sell his daughter to me, provided I was willing to change my name. Her name was Bernice, as I recall, a pretty little blond—”
“A blond named Bernice!”
“Well, perhaps it was Alice,” he said, smiling down at her.
“Alice the awful?”
“No, Alice with the very pretty, very white breasts.” He lightly laid his hand over her breast, kneading gently. “I suppose I have always been perverse,” he continued after a moment, resolutely removing his hand. “The prettier the young lady, the more aloof I became. I must have known even then that you were there waiting for me.”
“More a nemesis than a sweet young lady.”
“A reformed nemesis, I trust?”
“When I am well again, you will see how reformed I am!”
He saw her lips tense, and quickly said, “I figure that you and your fire cost me about four thousand dollars. I trust you will recompense me for damages?”
“Yes, I shall do everything in my power to recompense you completely.”
“Will you tear up that agreement and turn all your money over to me?”
She saw the teasing gleam in his beautiful eyes. “So you were after my money all along?”
“Your body first, then your money.”
“I . . . I wasn’t a terribly good wife to you,” she said.
“On the other hand, you never bored me. Such a challenge you were to my masculine ego! Then, with that attempt to remove you from my sphere of influence aboard the Scarlet Queen, I realized what passion you had kept from me.”
She swallowed, remembering in painful detail her wildness, her utter abandon. “I liked it,” she said.
“But for all the wrong reasons,” he said quietly. “So you want to know something, love? I avoided you at first because you scared the hell out of me. A man doesn’t like to feel that he’s lost control, you know.”