LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

a start. He touched his shoulder, lightly prodding the bandage over the wound, and sucked in his breath as the dull ache changed abruptly to a raw stab of pain.

      The woman clucked her tongue with disapproval. “There, now, see for yourself how badly you’re hurt. You can bluster all you wish, but you won’t be leaving until that’s healed. Another week at least.”

      Jamie scowled, striving to hide the pain that was finally receding. “Don’t you think I’ll be the better judge of that?”

      For the first time she dared to square her gaze to meet his eyes. But was she daring him, wondered Jamie, or herself?

      “You’re a man,” she declared, “which is as much to say that you haven’t a blessed trace of sense where your own weakness is concerned. So, no, I don’t think you’re a good judge at all. Why, I doubt you could even lift that fancy rifle of yours this morning, let alone hold it steady enough to fire.”

      He wasn’t about to admit she was right. “There’s more to that rifle than looks alone. With it I can shoot the seeds from an apple at a hundred paces.”

      “I don’t doubt that you can,” she said. “But you can’t do it now, and you won’t ever do it again unless—”

      “Someone’s here.” Jamie jerked his hand up to silence her as he strained his ears to listen. “One horse, one rider. Where’s my gun?”

      Rachel rushed to the window, anxiously wiping away a corner of the frost with the hem of her apron to peer outside. What she saw made her mutter one of her seafaring father’s favorite imprecations under her breath as her whole face tightened.

      “What’s amiss? Where’s my rifle?” demanded Jamie, struggling to shove himself free of the coverlet. “If you think I’m going to lie here like a trussed turkey-cock while you—”

      “Hush, now, you won’t be needing your gun just yet.” She smiled grimly as she reached for her cloak from the peg on the back of the door. “’Tis only my husband’s brother, and if anyone’s going to pepper Alec’s backside, I plan to be first. But you needn’t worry. I’ll send him on his way soon enough.”

      She swung the cloak over her shoulders, trying to decide whether to bring Billy with her or not. There was an even chance that he’d babble to Alec about the stranger, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to risk leaving him behind in the house, either. With a sigh she reached down and yanked the quilt from the trundle bed, wrapped it around Billy and scooped him, wriggling, onto the curve of her hip. Finally, with her free hand, she took one of the pair of long-barreled muskets that hung, loaded and ready, beside the door.

      A new layer of snow had fallen in the night, not more than an inch or two on what already lay on the ground, but enough to soften the edges of the paths Rachel had shoveled and swept from the house to the barn. She walked forward only a dozen paces from the house, unwilling to go any farther to greet or encourage Alec, and set Billy down at her feet.

      “Listen to me, Billy,” she whispered, bending to the height of the child’s ear. “This is important. We must not say a word about the poor man inside, or Uncle Alec may try to hurt him more. Not a single word, love, not even a peep like a baby chick’s. Do you understand? Shush!”

      She laid her forefinger first across her lips and then across Billy’s, miming the silence she prayed he would keep.

      “Shush, Mama,” he whispered back solemnly, hunching his shoulders beneath the quilt as he pressed his own finger across his lips. “I’m quiet!”

      “Thank you, love, that’s all I ask,” she whispered as she gave him a little squeeze. “You’re Mama’s good boy.”

      She knew her request wouldn’t be a hard one for Billy to obey. At best Alec had treated his nephew as an inconvenient nuisance, and even as a baby Billy had wisely learned to keep from his uncle’s path.

      She straightened, lifting the musket to her shoulder. Long ago her father had insisted that she and her sisters learn how to load and fire a gun, but it was only since she’d come here as William’s wife that she’d been forced to put her skills to the test.

      Not that Alec would be any kind of test; his visits were more of a trial that sent her heart to pounding with dread. She hadn’t expected him to come again until spring, when the snow was gone and the journey from his own cabin could be made in two hours instead of four. Carefully she kept her face impassive as he labored up the hill toward her, digging his bootheels into the sides of his weary horse. Most men would have dismounted and led the animal through the drifted snow, or at least found an easier path, but the only other man that Alec Lindsey resembled was his brother—and her husband—William.

      And the resemblance was disturbingly strong. The same pale gold hair above arched brows, the same squared jaw turning soft from drink and the same slightly bored expression to his gentlemanly features that could so easily turn to sullenness, the fashionably cut coat of imported broadcloth beneath the heavy overcoat—all of it nearly a mirror to William.

      Once Rachel had congratulated herself on marrying into a family with such handsome, charming men, but that was when she’d believed as well in the elegant country seat that the Lindsey brothers promised was the centerpiece of their vast estates here to the west of the Hudson, and well before she’d learned that the only thing vast about the Lindseys were the lies that slipped so easily from their lips.

      She took a deep breath to calm herself, and flexed her fingers against the icy metal of the flintlock. “You can just turn yourself directly about, Alec,” she shouted when she was certain he was near enough to hear. “I told you before you weren’t welcome here any longer.”

      “And a good day to you, sister!” Alec raised his beaver tricorn, dusted with snow, and gallantly swept it across his breast. “But pray put aside the musket, my lady. It’s not a greeting I particularly fancy.”

      “The musket stays, Alec, for I intend neither to greet you nor to tease your fancy,” she called back. “Now, away with you, and off my land before I’m tempted to try my marksmanship.”

      “The only thing you’re trying, Rachel, is my patience.” With a grunt he swung his leg over the saddle and dropped heavily to the snowy ground. “You’ll thank me when you learn why I’ve come.”

      “If it’s more of your self-styled help, Alec, I want none of it.” Though she didn’t dare look away from her brother-in-law, she could feel how Billy shrank uneasily against her leg.

      “You wanted it readily enough last year,” said Alec, his breath coming in great gusts in the icy air as he trudged through the snow. “And this past autumn, too. Who saw to it that you’d firewood to last through the snows, eh?”

      “Only half of what you promised,” she declared, but grudgingly she rehooked the catch on the flintlock and lowered the gun. Though she hated to admit it, she wouldn’t have survived last winter without his assistance. It was what he’d expected in return that had made his charity so loathsome, and her position so complicated now. “What is it this time Alec?”

      He stopped a half-dozen paces away and smiled with the full force of his considerable charm. “A chance to gild our pockets, Rachel. Twenty dollars, all going begging. You won’t say nay to that when times are so hard now, will you, sister?”

      “No one lets gold go begging, hard times or not,” answered Rachel suspiciously. “Especially not you. The truth, Alec, plain and simple.”

      Seeing how little charm was getting him, Alec jammed his hat squarely on his head and spat into the snow. “The truth, Rachel, is that one of those bloody Tory Rangers lost his head in the middle of a battle, quarreling over a woman or some other plunder. Shot an officer dead without so much as a by-your-leave. At least, that’s what they’re saying at Volk’s.”

      “Oh, my, what’s said at Volk’s,” she scoffed. “Why do you think I’d care about your tavern tattle?” But despite the scorn she poured on his words, she did care. She cared very much, more with every

Скачать книгу