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  Patting her head gently, MacGregor said, “This is worse than burrs in a horse’s tail. We could cut it off,” he suggested when she shot him an angry glance.

  “I will not use my good brushes on dirty hair,” she stated haughtily. “Nor will I cut my hair. I can manage.”

  When she began plucking at the snarls, MacGregor shook his head and delved his fingers into the strands, patiently easing them apart.

  There was tenderness and safety in his touch, and she knew why the baby quieted when being handled by MacGregor.

  She turned aside, tucking her chin within the folds of the shirt. She hadn’t asked him to help her, and his kindness hurt her as surely as a wasp’s sting. To conceal her pain, she lifted her chin and said coolly, “You know, once I saw apes preening each other. Picking lice and eating them. I do hope you’re not expecting me to return the favor.”

  His fingers stilled, then began working again. When he spoke, there was a smile in his tone. “You’re not at the lice stage yet, ma’am. And I’ve already had my food. Hold still.”

  Regina blinked back the tears she’d held for a lifetime. “You’re heavy-handed for a maid, MacGregor,” she lashed out at him, arching away from his hands.

  “Settle down. I’m not doing any more for you than I would for my horse.” She noted a new tiredness in his voice, the thought stilling her.

  Finally the heavy mass tumbled down her back, and he lowered her head forward over the pan. MacGregor eased the wild strands into the water and began to work quietly, methodically. His large hands scrubbed a bar of soap along the strands and mopped her face dry every now and then as though she were Jack. Then he poured more warm water over her head, and Regina came up struggling for breath. “You are trying to drown me!”

  He laughed outright, placing a clean heavy cloth over her head. Rubbing it briskly, he ignored her indignant cries. “This isn’t a laughing matter, MacGregor!”

  When Regina finally struggled free of his grip, she realized he had been playing with her like a grizzly with a cub. She tossed the towel to the floor, stamping her foot and shaking her damp hair down her back. “You did that on purpose, MacGregor. You purposely tried to drown and suffocate me. Tried to kill me!”

  His mouth turned up, and for a moment the wrinkles fanning from his eyes deepened.

  “If you weren’t such a woolly-faced scoundrel, I could tell if you were laughing,” she accused hotly. “As it is, behind that bush, heaven knows what you’re doing! I should shear you like one of my sheep.”

  “Yes, ma’am. But with winter coming a man likes his face warm.”

  “Oh!” Snatching her brushes from her case, Regina sat cross-legged in front of the fire and began brushing her hair.

  She was suddenly too tired for the task, soothed by the feeling of being clean and the warmth of the fire. When MacGregor took her brushes and handed her a cup of tea, she studied the leaves swirling in the bottom of her cup. “Mr. MacGregor, you’ll do well to remember that I have a nasty temper. And at the moment I would very much like to lift that thick black scalp from your arrogant head.”

  “I’ll remember,” he said quietly.

  She half-turned, studying him over her shoulder. He held the brushes awkwardly, one in each hand as he waited. The shadows beneath his eyes caused her to turn back to the fire. The mountain man was deeply tired, needing his rest. Yet he would see his task through.

  “Start at the ends and work up,” she ordered softly.

  ~**~

  MacGregor stirred in his furs, instantly awake when Regina rose from her pallet. The woman stood over him like a shadow. He breathed quietly, feigning sleep when she bent to lift Jack into her arms.

  “Your father is a black devil, little MacGregor,” she whispered in hushed, lilting tones, moving away from him to the fire. “With a beautiful son,” she added, nuzzling Jack’s dark head. “Such a sweet baby you are, my lad.”

  In the hours hovering between night and dawn, Regina changed Jack and prepared his milk, adding fuel to the fire. MacGregor lay still, watching her tend his son, rocking the tiny body against her. Feeding Jack near the fire, Regina wrapped them both in her fur robe.

  She talked softly to the boy, and Jack cooed back at her, the sounds blending into a music that soothed MacGregor as he lay listening.

  MacGregor knew she was curing herself, making her medicine. Holding Jack had done that for him, too. When she lifted Jack to her shoulder, Regina kissed the baby’s cheek, and MacGregor’s heart skipped a beat.

  Long ago a lost child lay sobbing in a cold, dark cell, stripped of clothing to shame him and needing the closeness of a mother’s touch.

  MacGregor pressed his lips together. He was no longer a child, begging for scraps from the priest’s well-stocked table. But he wanted everything for his son—food and the warmth of a mother’s arms holding him in a fever.

  The Englishwoman whispered and sang a hushed lullaby, rocking the baby. Wrapped in her thoughts, she was unaware of anything but his child. She laughed softly, a low wispy sound, and Jack cooed in response.

  “You know, poor child, I thought your father was the black knight, rising out of the moors. He is fierce-looking and very much in need of manners. I will thrash him soundly when I’m stronger,” she confided softly to the baby. “He’s hardly the knight I dreamed about as a girl. Every young girl dreams the same, you know... waiting for her knight to sweep her away on his mighty steed, taking her to his castle to live happily evermore....”

  MacGregor closed his eyes, listening as she began to sing in a high clear voice. The words were unfamiliar, mentioning a lost love and the music of Greensleeves, yet beautiful as a mockingbird’s trill. The pleasant sound floated over him, soothing him as her fingers had soothed his scars.

  She’d frightened him then, stunning him with the lightest touch and making him ache for more.

  MacGregor turned, reaching out a hand to touch her empty pallet. The heat of her body still warmed the furs.

  He was damned tired, he decided, running his palm over the lush pelt. His shoulder ached, and the years weighted him now. A muscle tightened along his jaw, coursing down his throat, the bile rising in his mouth. Of mixed blood, Jack wouldn’t be forgotten in a missionary school as he had been—

  Her laughter rose sweetly behind him, and MacGregor listened, entranced by the sound that reminded him of water coursing through a rippling stream, sunlit and bubbly.

  He’d chosen Jack’s new mother well.

  When she tucked Jack in his nest and returned to her pallet, MacGregor allowed her to remove his hand from the fur. He liked the touch of her slender fingers on his wrist, easing it upon his chest.

  He sighed then, turning away from her to the fire.

  The screams of the dying came creeping after him in the night, and then he waited for the dawn to chase them away.

  ~**~

  Lord Alfred Covington strode across the Persian carpet covering the prairie grass. His whip beat the crimson wall of his tent rhythmically. Then he threw himself to his bed of buffalo robes covered by Irish linen. The whip struck dully against the pelt of a Bengal tiger as the earl stared at Krebs.

  “He should have wounded you higher,” he shot at the man rubbing the bandage on his thigh. “You surely have no need of your manhood when you can’t even complete the murder of a woman.”

  “She ain’t ordinary female flesh,” Krebs returned in a surly tone. “Took three of us to drag her off her pony.”

  “That bitch isn’t dead, is she, Krebs?” Covington asked too quietly, the whip thudding ominously against the pelts. He threw it against an ornate Turkish incense burner, then studied the dark red coals. They reminded him of Regina’s ruby eardrops and the fortune her death could bring him.

  “No, sir,” Krebs answered in a whine. “A wild man came out of the trees just like Old Ephraim—”

  “Old Ephraim,” Covington repeated the mountain man phrase carefully. “Mountain bear?”

  “Aye. Mean he
was. With black, glittering eyes.”

  “A bitch and a bastard, then,” Covington said, picking up the whip to poke the coals. “I needed those eardrops as proof of her death, Krebs.”

  “He can shoot, sir. Knew where to place bullets so as not to break bone, he did. Took a shot in the back like it was nothing.”

  “Filled with mercy, was he? I’m not feeling that particular tenderness myself now, Krebs.” Covington turned on his henchman, who shivered in fear. “As the fiancé of the only legal Mortimer-Hawkes child and granddaughter of that foreign woman, I am entitled by her death to half her family inheritance. Lord Mortimer-Hawkes would fall heir to the remainder.”

  The earl frowned, the cruelty in his long, thin face sharpening as he poked the scented coals. “By fathering her child, I could have had the entire fortune at my disposal after the marquess’s death.... I would have enjoyed watching her whelp. She needs reminding of her proper place.”

  “Yes, sir.” Krebs shifted toward the tent flap, watching the Englishman’s face. The hired man had killed the other two men after the mountain man rode away. If Covington were to discover how they had planned to keep the woman—

  “Bring me her ears, Krebs. With the rubies in them. And kill the bastard with her. But make him pay first,” Covington ordered tightly. “Send in that Indian squaw as you leave. She needs me to remind her of her place, just like the Lady Mortimer-Hawkes.”

  The whip lashed at the Bengal tiger pelt again. “I’ve changed my mind. The lady can wait. Ryker can track her easily enough with those purple eyes and raven, curling hair... though with that ugly dark skin, she’d pass for a squaw. I want to take a few more days clearing out the buffalo. Once I have her ears, I’m heading for England and that damned Bedouin bag of jewels that Mortimer-Hawkes keeps throwing at me. Without it I wouldn’t have stained my good name with that savage-tempered bitch.”

  ~**~

  Chapter Five

  MacGregor awoke instantly, his finger tightening on the pistol’s trigger. Shifting beneath his buffalo robe, he turned toward the sound and slowly opened his eyes.

  The woman sat with her legs crossed, her back to him as she faced the blazing fire. Water heated in the metal buckets, her china cup delicate against the flat stone of the hearth.

  The bare light coming through the cloth covering the window touched her, framing her from the shadows. She dipped the cloth into the water, soaping and rinsing herself in languid, graceful movements.

  Regina’s long hair flowed down her bare back and MacGregor’s palm moved restlessly, remembering the rippling mass. She had washed it again, the damp strands forming curls at her hips. In the daylight it would be blue-black as a raven’s wing catching the sun.

  Something stilled him as he watched her, the flickering light playing about her dark, feminine outline. The soft slope of her breast ran down into a small waist and MacGregor began to harden. He’d never watched a woman bathe, and the sight fascinated him.

  There was beauty in her movements, the gentle sway of her hair as she moved. Like white doves, her hands floated over the rippling strands that shifted, tantalizing him with the curves of her body. Firelight danced across her skin, licking at her long, thick curls. She lifted and spread the heavy strands, the movements seductive, revealing and taunting him with the sight of her body. She moved like a willow swaying in the wind, the sinewy rippling of a cat.

  One that needed petting, he decided as the firelight flickered on her body. She moved, lifting, swaying, turning, stretching slender arms high. MacGregor wanted that pale body weaving, stroking his, hip against hip.

  Dressed in her drawers, the woman reminded him of the greyhound, Venus. Sleekly formed, with soft breasts and haunches. The rounded curve of her hip moved slightly, and MacGregor rubbed his palm against his chest.

  She was soft. That woman scent filled the cabin now. The light scent of wood violets blended with a deeper musk that stirred and tantalized him. He closed his eyes, remembering the heady scent of cinnamon and woman as he’d bathed her spread thighs.

  The wind had risen, howling outside the drafty cabin. He should be checking on Jack, but the sight of the woman bathing bound him. He moved slightly, positioning for a better view of the Englishwoman seated before the flames. In profile her eyes were closed, her arms moving gracefully as she cleansed the length of her throat. The water glistened on her skin, the muffled sounds of her bathing almost like music.

  There were soft sighs of pleasure as the water streamed down her body; a drop clung and shimmered on the very tip of her breast.

  MacGregor’s fingers moved through the lush fur covering him, remembering the silky skin.

  The firelight danced on her skin, outlining her body. With the dark cloud of damp hair sweeping down her back, her skin was light as a fawn’s.

  Old Hugh rested across her lap, the steel blade glistening in the light.

  Was she praying? He knew there were those who had a god. In the war they had called out to him for help. But their answer was shot and cannon.

  He’d learned long ago that the world was a lonely island, filled with pain and hunger. He’d fought the loneliness as a child, then as a man found himself leaning into it like an old friend.

  Then there was Jack and now the woman, whose swaying, graceful movements reminded him of a cat.

  She was cleansing and healing herself, distancing herself from pain and fear, and drawing on her inner strength. There was a hard curve to her mouth, and MacGregor studied her intently. Yet her touch had run softly across his back, tracing the scars. Her fingertips had brushed his palm in her sleep.

  She’d frightened him then with her soft touch. Like a butterfly’s wings brushing across his back. And he’d responded how he knew best, by lashing out at her.

  The humming stopped and she stood slowly. MacGregor’s heartbeat slowed as he watched, his mouth drying for the taste of her. She was pale and thin, more like a girl than a woman, her hip bones prominent when she loosened her drawers and they fell to the floor.

  Pale buttocks shimmered and shifted slowly, the soft flesh just waiting for his palm.

  MacGregor studied her long legs, remembering the silky feel of them beneath his fingers as he applied the salve. Once his hand brushed that soft nest of curls at the top of her thighs and he’d caught that musky sweet fragrance rising from her flesh.

  Firelight danced on the upward tilt of the woman’s breasts. They were small and shimmered as she bent, the tips pointed— MacGregor’s hand trembled, curling into a fist.

  Just above the soft rise of her buttock, dimples created small shadows that he wanted to trace with his fingertips. In the shadows behind her knee the softest patch of skin enticed him....

  Stirring restlessly, he forced himself to quiet. He was hard, needing her, shivering with a painful heat that wouldn’t be smothered.

  When he wanted a woman, it was a quick toss beneath the blankets or furs. He’d taken his ease and not lingered past his paid time. Yet the Englishwoman’s small body excited him more than the lush weight of a full-blown woman.

  Regina turned slightly, pointed the blade at the fire, and drew a line down the center of her body.

  MacGregor understood instantly and frowned. The woman had taken an oath for revenge.

  She’d have to fight getting away from him first. It wouldn’t do for his woman to go man hunting.

  Placing the blade on a stone, she stood and began to bathe quietly, running a cloth down her body. The slender waist curved into narrow hips and the line of her thigh.... She bent, spreading her legs to let the water run down her inner thighs.

  MacGregor swallowed the dry wad of longing suddenly lodged in his throat. She was too slight, her breasts barely filled his hands.

  Closing her eyes, she ran the soapy cloth down her flat stomach, rinsing the curling nest below. Then soaping the area, she parted her legs, resting one on the hearth as she bathed herself intimately. A soft length of thigh glistened damply and MacGregor’s blood p
ounded. He couldn’t remember the last time the softness of a woman’s thighs gripped his hips, accepting his plunging body.

  The women he’d known worked for pay and spent little time at the game, accepting a quick, rough ride as their due.

  MacGregor swallowed tightly. There was something soft and new in the Hawkes woman, her violet eyes clear as though she hadn’t known a man. He thought of them darkening with anger and softening as she touched Jack.

  Her skin had quivered beneath his touch, her body tense. He wondered how she would feel moving beneath him like heated silk. Instinctively he knew the woman hadn’t known many men, nor let them touch her. Nor let them watch her bathe—

  The thought that he’d be holding her, touching that rippling skin, and seeking out her moistness, entering it, caused MacGregor to tremble.

  Desire skimmed across him, torching his skin; his heart pounding heavily within his chest.

  She was his woman, wasn’t she? He gritted his teeth, recognizing the hot need riding his body. He’d made up his mind to marry her, and a ceremony would come as soon as they could find a preacher.

  A strand of black hair caught on her breast, webbing a fine mesh across the soft, glistening skin until the dark tip peeked through. She turned her back and presented MacGregor with a slender, tapering line to a tiny waist and surprisingly softly rounded hips flowing down to long legs.

  MacGregor’s muffled groan swept down his taut body. He’d been without a woman for a year, finding that whores couldn’t cure his chilling nightmares.

  After her bath Regina drew on his shirt, rolling the sleeves back to fit her. She glanced at him and found him watching her intently.

  “You’ve been spying, MacGregor. In Malapor the rajah would have your eyes put out for such a trespass,” she whispered huskily.

  “Blood-thirsty little witch, aren’t you?” he answered mildly, throwing off the heavy fur.

  Her eyes widened, flowing down his hard body. Lying amid the furs, his dark length blended with the buffalo pelt. His beard gave way to the black wedge of hair on his chest and tapering down his flat stomach. For a lean man, his thighs were heavier, his pale legs long and lightly covered by a rough surface of hair.