“Ten horses?”
Summer slowly let out the breath she had been holding. Ten horses was an exorbitant number, but she wasn’t about to quibble or accuse Fights Bear of taking advantage of her position.
With a soft smile of agreement, she bowed her head humbly. “Thank you, Fights Bear, for your wisdom and your regard for your brother. I think Sharp Lance will think that a fair exchange.”
She wanted to tell Lance of her victory at once, but when Summer returned to the tepee she shared with him, he was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t allowed to go in search of him, either, for she had to help cook supper—more roasted meat, as usual—and then prepare the bedrolls for sleeping. By the time the camp settled down for the night, she still had seen no sign of her husband.
Restlessly Summer turned over in the bed they usually shared and pulled a buffalo robe more snugly around her body. The feel of the tanned hide rasping against her naked breasts made her wince with remembered pleasure. Embarrassed, Summer shut her eyes, recalling the heat of Lance’s mouth assaulting her nipples, the wicked lash of his tongue between her thighs, the fierce passion that had exploded between them this afternoon. What in heaven’s name had happened to her? One moment she was struggling in his arms, resisting his fierce caresses. The next, she didn’t even recognize herself.
She’d been an entirely different woman in his arms—primal and lusting and oblivious to anything but the need to get closer to him. It frightened her, the wild way she’d responded to Lance, to his fury, his violence. She’d been raised a lady, and ladies did not behave like strumpets. Ladies did not allow their husbands to do such shameful, abandoned things to them, either.
What was more alarming, she had always relied on charm and beauty and the power of her femininity to control men, but Lance had proven invulnerable to all her usual maneuvering. She, on the other hand, was growing less and less certain in their relationship. It frightened her to contemplate a future with Lance as her husband. If she fell apart each time he merely touched her, then she would have no control over the marriage he’d forced on her, no control over him. And Lance was ungentlemanly enough to exploit her weakness if he could.
Still, her wanton behavior and her growing helplessness weren’t her only concerns. It worried her even more that Lance was gone.
* * *
He rode into camp at midmorning the next day. Without a word, or even a glance at his wife, Lance dropped the deer he’d killed beside the working women and then dismounted to enter the tepee.
Summer wiped her hands on the grass to clean off the tanning solution, then rose and followed him inside. She found him hanging his bow and arrow quiver from a lodgepole.
“Where have you been?” she demanded without preliminaries. Her relief that he had returned safely was overshadowed by her anger that he had frightened her so.
The menace in his black gaze when Lance glanced over his shoulder at her took her aback. “I don’t reckon that’s any of your business.”
Summer started to retort that where her husband slept was very much her business, that she was his wife—but she remembered the argument they’d had yesterday concerning his proprietary rights, and she bit her tongue. Theirs was not a normal marriage, by any means.
“I didn’t sleep with him,” Summer said in a low voice.
The silence that greeted her announcement stretched into a full minute as Lance settled on the ground with his back to her and began refilling his parfleche from the tepee’s stores, replenishing the supplies he’d used up during his hunting trip.
“I’m afraid you are ten horses poorer, though.”
If Summer hoped he would be curious enough to ask what she meant, she was disappointed. Lance went indifferently on with his task.
Trying to keep a rein on her temper, Summer moved across the tepee to stand before him. “I offered myself to Fights Bear. I told him that you sent me because you wanted to honor him as a brother. But then I suggested an alternative. I managed to convince him to accept another ten horses in exchange for not sleeping with me.”
“Should I give a damn?” Lance asked finally.
Summer felt like stamping her foot in frustration. Why was he being so contrary? She had gone against his wishes yesterday, yes, but she’d had no choice. Couldn’t he see that?
“You seemed to care a great deal yesterday. In fact, I distinctly remember you throwing a tantrum because I risked approaching your brother.”
A muscle twitched warningly in his jaw, but he didn’t abandon his smoldering silence.
Summer watched Lance in dismay. Did he truly not care? Or was he merely jealous because she’d been prepared to sleep with his brother?
If it was jealousy, then she was glad. He hadn’t tried to hide his possessiveness yesterday—yet that could have been explained as mere male pride. A man held on to an object he possessed, and a wife belonged to a man much as an object. Or perhaps he wanted to protect his own consequence. Much of what she’d told his brother last evening was true. If his wife was shamed, then Lance would suffer. He had married her to improve his status in white society, or so he’d said.
Yet she wanted to mean more to him than simply an object, or a means for social advancement. She wanted…What did she want?
She wanted Lance to respect her, at least, Summer realized. She wanted him to see her as more than the shallow, vain creature she’d once been. She wanted to earn a measure of the same reverence Lance had used when he’d spoken of his mother.
This man was her husband; he had become part of her yesterday. She didn’t want him to think badly of her because of what she’d been willing to do for her sister.
And whatever the reason for his anger, she was feminine enough to realize the wisdom of soothing his wounded pride.
Swallowing her own frustration, Summer knelt beside him and placed a gentle hand on his arm. His body went rigid at her touch, but he didn’t pull away.