“You cannot walk across that river, and there isn’t time for you to try it so that you can prove to me that you can do it. Besides that, I don’t trust you not to go wandering off into the woods. Either I carry you like this across the river in front of the others or you ride with me.”
“Captain Montgomery, I don’t like you at all. Not one little bit,” she said as she allowed him to help her onto his horse in front of him. She could feel his warm, bare skin through her cotton blouse.
“That’s odd,” he said into her ear. “Yesterday I got the impression that you liked me a lot. A whole lot.”
Maddie’s entire body turned red in embarrassment, and she did her best to sit up straight so that she didn’t touch him, but that was impossible to do on the ride across the river. She could swear that he led his horse into every hole so that she was thrown back against him.
Once, when Buttercup’s front hoof slipped, ’Ring’s arm tightened around her rib cage. “I don’t care how mad you are at me,” he snapped. “Lean back against me and don’t risk falling.”
She had sense enough to obey him. She leaned back and found that she fit against him as though her body had been made for his.
On the other side of the river, as she dismounted, she didn’t look at him. “Thank you,” she murmured, and went quickly to the coach. His shirt was on the seat, and she sat as far away from it as possible.
The coach had just started rolling when the door was thrown open and Captain Montgomery entered.
“This coach is the heaviest thing I’ve ever tried to push. What’s in those trunks of yours? Lead?”
“I don’t want any company,” she said, and looked out the window.
“Well, I do. Both Frank and Sam leave something to be desired as conversationalists, and Toby mostly complains, and that maid of yours is…”
She looked at him and wished she hadn’t, because he still wore no shirt. “What’s wrong with Edith?”
“She keeps offering herself to me, that’s all. Said that for me it would be free.”
She turned angry eyes to him. “And we know you’re much too good to take her up on the offer, don’t we?”
He rubbed his arms against the cold, then looked for his shirt, which he was sitting on. He withdrew it and began to put it on. “I don’t know how I’ve come to be classified as a prude but, for the record, I’m not.”
She didn’t look at him, but she snorted.
“Should I throw myself on a woman to prove that I’m not?”
“I don’t know what gives you the idea that I care what you do. Except that I wish you’d ride somewhere else. I didn’t invite you into this coach with me, nor did I invite you on this trip. I really wish you’d go away.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. In fact, he was so silent that Maddie turned to look at him. He was watching her intently. “Do I have dirt on my face, Captain?”
“No,” he said slowly. “Not dirt.” He didn’t say a word more, but opened the door, grabbed the outside overhead rail, and pulled himself out of the coach, going up to ride on the top with Sam and Frank.
Maddie lectured herself for the next hour for being such a fool. She was making an ass of herself and everyone was taking note of it. Sh
e vowed that she’d keep her feelings to herself from then on. Captain Montgomery meant absolutely nothing to her. She wasn’t interested in him in any way, shape, or form, and the sooner he understood that, the better. From now on she was going to be polite to him and nothing else. He was no different, of no more interest to her than Frank was.
“You can’t go out there,” ’Ring said softly. “I mean it, you can’t go out there. Those men are drunk. They’ve taken days to get drunk and they’re getting mean.”
They were in her tent that they’d set up outside the only building in the little town of Pitcherville. When they’d arrived in the dirty little camp a few hours before, every man and all the women who serviced them had come out to meet the singing duchess. Word of LaReina’s impending visit had reached them the previous day, and everyone had taken time off from the monotony of trying to find gold to get drunk in anticipation of hearing the opera singer. Six men had even made the trek back to Denver City to get the piano for her. They’d hauled it up the steep mountain trail, dropping it three times, and now Frank was trying to put it back together.
“Of course I can sing for them,” Maddie said, turning away from him, trying to sound confident. But she could hear the shouts and the occasional gunfire from the men.
He caught her arm and turned her to face him. “What’s wrong with you? What’s made you so angry at me?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I am the same as I’ve always been to you. Nothing’s changed.”
“Yes, it has. For a while there I thought maybe we could be friends. I know I certainly enjoyed our conversations.”
“Conversations? Is that what you call them? Where you tell me what I can and cannot do? Where you ask me questions about every aspect of my life?”
He took a step back from her. “I beg your pardon. I guess I was under the wrong impression.” He took a breath. “But forget our differences. Those men out there are getting mean and I’m afraid for you.”