Chapter Nineteen

The next day, numb and emotionless, Juliet stopped beneath an alcove in the courtyard near the officers’ quarters and pulled in her billowing skirts. How stiff and confining the dress felt compared to the soft doeskin. She placed her palm on the coarse hand-hewed log wall. Patches of splintery bark abraded her fingertips, and she shifted them across the cool rough chinking, still irked by Joshua’s callous dismissal of her.

She watched him as he leaned indolently against the corner. A warm land breeze ruffled his dark hair and, for a moment the thick waves rippled as if tousled by the fingers of an invisible lover. How she yearned to run her fingers through his hair…to keep on touching him.

No. She couldn’t afford to care or indulge herself in emotions that would lead to nowhere. Keep the relationship on an impersonal level. That was the best way to deal with matters.

Unaware of her presence, he stood alone looking up at the fort’s parapets, the frontiersman whose fame and marksmanship garnered respect across the Colonies. How strange his observant activity. Things didn’t add up. The questions he asked at dinner the evening before were carefully constructed. An offer in sympathy to the Loyalist cause? Or was it?

She tapped a finger on her lips. Was his friendly chatter and worthless information used to worm-out secrets under the guise of conversation? How his questions probed yet didn’t probe and how he seemingly hung back in the shadows.

For encouraging Captain Sunderland, she took a step toward him to give him a piece of her mind, but stopped. Held herself back. Aphrodite, Joshua had called her, now that unfettered creature, imprisoned in a dark cell like a butterfly pinned under glass. It was pathetic, appalling—and she held thoughts of retaliation against the man who had reduced her to this dreadful feeling. He had made clear his intentions. Or had he? She saw how his eyes followed her during the dinner when he thought she wasn’t looking. How his hands fisted and unfisted when other men paid attention.

A soldier came up to Joshua, bowed formally and addressed him, practically genuflecting. Why such reverence? Juliet did not hear what he had to say, but Joshua looked around worried. He placed his hand on the soldier’s shoulder, and faintly she overheard him say, “Keep quiet.”

Keep quiet? Regarding what? How peculiar.

Joshua stepped off the porch and joined Two Eagles where he had set up their furs amidst a knot of raw, uncouth traders, haggling over their pelts. She lifted her nose with the smell of them. How long had it been since they bathed? A month? A year?

A trader moved into a familiar bartering pose—shoulders hunched forward, hands held out, palms upward. Joshua shook his head and pushed the man’s hand away. This was Joshua’s means of support? This is what he lived for?

If she stayed with him, she’d live a life alone for many months in a log cabin while he was roaming the wilderness making a livelihood. Her musings scattered. Festering occurrences of the past tore open old wounds. She was alien, did not belong.

But wouldn’t those seldom moments together yield a lifetime of happiness?

Joshua turned to the other dealers. “What price?”

A hatchet-faced trader crushed the brim on his hat in agitation. “I might go as high as four pounds for the whole lot.”

Three pairs of eyes glinted their approval. The price was too low. The negotiating continued while Joshua pitched a higher price. The traders pitched a sigh which seemed to start in their boots.

“What a nice surprise, Lady Faulkner. Have you come to find me?”

Juliet turned sharply at Captain Sunderland’s voice.

Young and handsome in his white wig and bright uniform with its polished brass buttons and bronze gorget, Captain Sunderland might have captured Juliet’s fancy if she’d met him back in England. But now he seemed a mere boy compared to the big, brooding frontiersman.

At the sound of her name, Joshua looked up from what he was doing, his deep blue eyes flashed upon her, fierce and possessive. As if she were his property. Everyone followed his stare. A murmur of interest rippled through the fast-swelling crowd.

Recalling how Joshua had carelessly thrown her to Captain Sunderland the evening before, she smiled up at the captain, giving her full attention. Yes, she’d use her feminine wiles on the captain and seize the moment.

“Why-why, of course. You promised me a picnic and I wondered if now might be a good time.” Juliet breathed a most captivating smile for Captain Sunderland’s benefit, as if her approval were the most important mission he could attain in life.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Joshua mutter a curse. A certain warmth radiated throughout her body that flirting with Captain Sunderland had produced.

But the effect lasted only a second. She tore her gaze from the captain’s. Her heart clenched. Oh, Joshua, it is as if I’ve known you all my life, and when I’m with you, I don’t have to pretend to be anyone or anything.

She knew Joshua Hansford.

Pushed behind a wall of painful emotions, trapped in the swirling waters of his subconscious, existed a fear of feeling…and being vulnerable.

Her heart ached for the highly intelligent frontiersman who was unable to see how his life made him into an island…untouched and…isolated.

He did not fool her. Not for one moment. He wanted to break free of that prison, thirsted for human contact. Teaching him to dip his toe into humanity’s tumult was good for him…and she would teach him. Her maneuverings would be painful but would serve to annoy him enough to bring him to the light. Time was what she demanded.

Captain Sunderland held up his arm and she threaded her hand through it. “I’m on duty but have a few minutes to chat if you would do me the honor.”

“That would be wonderful, Captain.” She sashayed perfectly, having Joshua’s attention.

Lost in her thoughts, she heard Captain Sunderland say something and nodded, not really hearing what he’d said.

“Then you will accompany me home to England?”

He looked surprised she had accepted and there was more depth in his meaning than she wanted to plumb at the moment. Captain Sunderland was gallant and handsome and would make any girl swoon. She liked him but not in the way he desired. “I-I can’t surely say. Tell me of your ancestors.”

Impressively, he went on, the entire lineage, back to Caesar’s invasion of England, none of which she paid attention to as they circled the grounds, and then back to the bartering.

One trader shot forward, shaking his fist in Joshua’s face. “You are a son of a whore to demand such price.”

“I assure you my birthright is legitimate and should deck you for your disrespect. My furs are of excellent quality and will bring high profits in Albany.”

Two Eagles stepped between them.

She said loudly, “This haggling is like two cockerels fluffing their feathers and shaking their wattles yet knowing they would not fight.”

He stiffened from her insult, and then followed Two Eagles’ gaze to where the doors of the fort opened. A well-dressed man entered.

Joshua left the traders, walked to the boardwalk where she and the captain stood and made an exaggerated bow. “Captain Sunderland, Lady Faulkner. I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”