“What should I do next time?” Lucy removed a sweat-stained sheet.
“Next time?” Morning Fawn hurried to replace her drawers while Lucy still had her back turned.
“If he asks me more questions. And what if he tells the master?”
Tell him I might twist his nose off if he keeps putting it in my business. Morning Fawn bit her lip and tugged her chemise over her head. “Tell him as little as possible. Then, let me know every word he says. If he’s sneaking around asking questions, I doubt he’ll be gossiping to my uncle about it.”
“I reckon.” Lucy nodded. “And he did look concerned about you last night.”
“He did?” She gaped. Had Lucy seen him come to her room? “When?”
“While they was giving you the medicine. Came out of his room as if he planned to march up them stairs and tell your uncle what’s what. Me and George had to plead with him to stay put.”
Concerned about her? Probably just guilt. Maybe that’s why he’d removed the nails.
Lucy snapped a sheet wide and waved it over the straw-stuffed tick. “I’ve got a feeling that man is going to stir up trouble.”
Mr. Trouble. Morning Fawn covered her eyes. Had she really called him that? She’d probably sounded like some scarlet woman at a saloon.
“Miss Thea hasn’t wasted any time.” Lucy tucked in the corners.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Batting her eyes, twirling her fan, trying to act as sweet as if she were born in a honeycomb. Weaseled her way into riding with the lieutenant and the massa. Your uncle’s showing off theplantation, but that ain’t what Miss Thea’s showing off. She done set her cap for Reynolds.”
Morning Fawn jabbed a hand to her hip. No surprise there. Thea would chase after anyone in pants as long as they owned a cotton field or had money. And Reynolds? His concern wasn’t worth spit. Going riding with that woman a few hours after he’d snuck into Morning Fawn’s room?
That man was a downright scoundrel in so many ways she couldn’t count them. Serve him right if he were to get caught in Thea’s web. And if he’d gossiped to that plantation princess about what he’d seen last night? Morning Fawn gritted her teeth and jabbed her arms into her dress. Those two deserved each other.
CHAPTER 6
Devon picked up the gunpowder flask from the top of the weathered fencepost and measured a load. This was his chance to talk to LeBeau about Morning Fawn. Helping her without sabotaging his welcome and his mission was as easy as walking between bullets.
Thank goodness, Mrs. LeBeau insisted that Thea accompany her on a visit to a neighboring plantation. A morning of feigning mild interest had grated on his nerves worse than clanging pots.
A cotton field with its stubbled leavings stretched before him and LeBeau. A murder of crows hopped along the hardened rows pecking. Seventy-five yards out, a board swung from an extended branch of a post oak. Yellow leaves dangled above the bull’s eye George had used coal to scrawl on the target.
LeBeau held out his revolver and rotated it from side to side. “You ever seen one of these, Reynolds?”
“No, sir. Looks mighty fine.” Devon admired the iron barrel and wood grip with its brass trigger guard. Steel was hard to come by these days with the Union blockade of the entire Southern coastline and control of the Mississippi.
LeBeau rubbed his thumb over the polished walnut. “Dance and Brothers Company. Made here in Texas.” He pulled his powder flask from the pocket of his buckskin hunting coat.
Might as well have been playing dressup for the frontier. The hypocrite probably wouldn’t last two days in Palo Duro Canyon. If Morning Fawn attempted to don anything that came off a deer, her uncle would undoubtedly have a fit.
LeBeau stuck out his chest. “We’ll see how this beauty fares against that Northern-made Colt of yours.”
“Colts have served me well.” Devon poured a load in the fifth chamber and dug wadding out of a pouch on his belt.
“1860 Army model?” LeBeau arched his eyebrows. “That make is hard to come by in this neck of the woods.”
“I ran across a dead Yank in Louisiana. He had no further need of it. That’s where I got these boots too.” Devon scuffed the heel of his knee-high cavalry boots against a clump of shriveled grass.
LeBeau’s lips twitched upward as he finished his loads. “You ever put a bullet in one of them blue-bellies?”
Devon’s stomach turned.
A breeze rippled across his face and tugged at the corners of the brown frock coat LeBeau had loaned him until his uniform could be washed. Tailor-fitted for LeBeau’s son, Arthur, doctor in the Confederate army, the wool stretched against Devon’s muscles, limiting his range of motion.
