We will not leave it up to you, Lieutenant. Morning Fawnjutted her chin and lifted her cumbersome skirts, which hung about her like weeds.
Reynolds held out his gloved hand. Work gloves, not fancy ones like her uncle and not the gauntlets of real cavalry who were out doing their duty.
She merely stared at it as she placed her foot on the carriage step. Her gaze skimmed his uniform. “I see you’re a lieutenant again.”
With a smirk, he whispered, “I see you’re still Miss Trouble.”
She blinked. A reference to the night he’d sneaked into her room? Heat spread across her cheeks. The nerve of the man. She bristled into the carriage and settled herself next to her aunt. This was going to be a long ride.
Reynolds climbed into the driver’s seat, not nearly far enough away. He clicked the reins, and they trotted down the tree-lined path, past stubbled fields and the distant slave quarters. She’d heard tell that eighty men, women, and children lived in those shacks. Lucy was one of the fortunate ones, spared from the fields. At least when Morning Fawn had been captured by the Comanche, she’d been taken in by a family who came to love her and eventually treat her as an equal.
Eyes-Like-Sky had not been so fortunate.
Morning Fawn clenched her hands in her lap, resisting the urge to yank the straw hat off her head and stomp it. Instead, she pressed her lips together as Aunt Judith chatted on about lace, and silk, and linens, and how a proper young lady should drop her handkerchief or wave her fan to discretely catch a gentleman’s eye.
Morning Fawn shut her eyes, but the memory erupted. Eyes-Like-Sky in a dirty, worn buckskin, scabs from half-healed wounds on her arms, gathering firewood in the brush for her master. Trembling, Morning Fawn crouched behind a tree with a cake of pemmican in her hand and tears streaming down hercheeks. She longed to take the food to her sister and hug her, but she was afraid. Afraid of being seen with her, afraid that the people in the village would recognize how she belonged right there with Eyes-Like-Sky, beaten and enslaved, with no pia or ahpu, no one, not even a little sister, brave enough to stand up for her. She ran, shoved the pemmican in Eyes-Like-Sky’s hand, and fled. No wonder the Lord shut his ears to her prayers.
“Have you listened to a word I’ve said?” Aunt Judith spread the star-patterned quilt across both of their laps.
Morning Fawn shuddered and sat forward, glancing beneath the side canopy. Off to the right, withered grass and caked mud banks led to the narrowed Colorado River. Rain had been scarce all summer and fall.
“Beth?” Her aunt nudged her arm.
“I’ve been listening enough to wonder how a young lady with all of the hankie dropping, eyelash fluttering, and flattery can ever hope to secure a man of any worth.”
Reynolds snorted.
Morning Fawn rolled her eyes. Didn’t the man have anything better to do than eavesdrop?
“Keep your ears on the road, Lieutenant.” Aunt Julia pointed a finger at his back.
Morning Fawn unbuttoned the cloak at her throat. Too warm. Too confining. Sweat beaded on the back of her neck. She had to get her mind off the past before she had another panic fit.
Aunt Judith lowered her voice. “A young woman of character doesn’t make up falsities about the man in question. She merely searches her mind for compliments, accentuating the gentleman’s good qualities.”
Accentuating? She wouldn’t bother to ask the meaning.
Aunt Judith tilted her chin. “A pleasant smile and a little fluttering are means of showing you’re agreeable and discreetly conveying your interest.”
Discreet? From what she knew of that word, it had never entered into Thea’s vocabulary. “In my village, if a warrior was interested in a maiden?—”
“That was a world away from here.” Aunt Judith wiggled her ruby ring. “You must focus on the present and show the gentlemen of this county that you are a civilized young woman capable of running their household and being an asset to them in the community. That you’re not a wild horse in danger of breaking down the fence and fleeing to kingdom come at the drop of a feather. Forever chomping at the bit.”
“I don’t care for bits,” Morning Fawn muttered and pushed the quilt to her aunt’s side of the carriage.
The lieutenant’s shoulders twitched. Was he listening? He was the exact type of man who’d think he could bridle a woman and have her trot or canter at his command. He’d best go find himself a little mouse who didn’t know how to squeak.
CHAPTER 10
Traffic picked up as they neared town. Morning Fawn had only been to Columbus once in the year and a half since she’d come to live with her uncle. Outside her aunt’s window, wagons and buggies passed in the other lane. People strode by. The women wore wide hoops and bonnets. Most of the men were either boys, old, or in uniform.
Morning Fawn’s shoulders tensed. Too many people. Too many buildings, one wooden structure after another.
Reynolds pulled up to the iron horse-head hitching post in front of Gilbert’s with its freshly cleaned windows reflecting the late-morning sun.
To her aunt’s chagrin, Morning Fawn hurried out of the carriage before Reynolds had a chance to offer assistance, but he beat her to the mercantile door and opened it wide.
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Her aunt entered the store, a parasol on her arm, as if she might need such a thing inside.
