“What if I chose not to let you go?”
“We’re in Sioux country. You’d have to let me go.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She flashed him a quick smile. “I am learning Sioux ways. A very great warrior is too important a man to be bothered by a woman. A Sioux leader as respected as yourself would have to allow his wife to leave if she chose to do so. Your pride would surely dictate that you not be disturbed by the comings or goings of someone so inconsequential as a wife.”
He grinned, watching her, shaking his head. “Perhaps that is the Sioux way. But don’t forget, my love, that men aremen—red or white—and that passion and jealousy are human traits. Dangerous, combustible traits. And on this you may rest assured. In my mixed-blood way of thinking, white or Sioux, wives can be troublesome. I cannot imagine more than one—at a time.”
Her lashes swept her cheeks. She was still smiling. Then she suddenly stared at him with a pained curiosity.
“You had a Sioux wife and she died. What—happened?” she asked him.
He sighed, unwilling to dredge up the memories now. “Smallpox.”
“I’m so very sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Still, you seem to be in pain. I am truly sorry.”
“And I told you,” he said, wondering why he was growing so irritated, “it was a long time ago.” Yet the last time he had lain in a tipi with a woman, it had been with Sea-of-Stars. She had been learning to speak English because she’d been aware that he was a different man with property in the white man’s world, and she had wanted to be all things to him. She hadn’t wanted to visit Mayfair until her English was fluent, but she’d happily listened to him talk about his home, his father’s property in Scotland, anything that interested him.
“I could take a walk,” Skylar suggested. “Perhaps you’d like to be left alone.”
“What?” he demanded, startled.
Sea-of-Stars was gone. He had loved her for her gentleness. Yet he suddenly realized that he’d never felt as passionate about any woman as he felt about Skylar. The two women could not have been more different. Sea-of-Stars had been as dark as Skylar was fair. Sea-of-Stars had believed that whatever he said was right, whereas Skylar would fight tooth and nail for her right to have her own opinion. He had indeed loved Sea-of-Stars. Hehad suffered her loss and the loss of their baby greatly. For a long time, he had dwelled in bitterness and somewhat relieved the pain of his grief by casting himself into the current conflict between the Sioux and the US government. Sea-of-Stars had been part of a different time. Life itself had seemed shaded in pastels and comfortable earth tones, the colors of the grass and the trees, the hills and the sky. Now life itself seemed much more vivid, the color of blood, and the crimson flow of the tide that was destined to run around them. Likewise, it seemed, his emotions regarding Skylar were equally vivid. From the moment he had first seen her, she had both angered and aroused him, and each of those strong emotions had only intensified since then.
Skylar stood, the white buckskin dress with its beautiful embroidery hanging in soft fringes to her calves. Her feet were bare. Her hair was tousled. The firelight played upon all the vivid colors that were here: gold, silver—even white. Shades of crimson and sunset were cast upon her. The night was cool, yet a certain warmth was captured within the tipi. He rose to stand before her, a brow arched.
“The tipi is yours,” he told her.
She flushed with a half-smile. “Yes, but I can be generous, living among the Sioux.”
“There are some matters of generosity I haven’t quite learned myself.”
She arched a brow.
“If you were to walk from here, where would you go?”
“I…walking!” she said simply. “Perhaps to your grandfather’s, perhaps to see Willow or Sloan.”
“I think not. I could not dream of being generous with a wife.”
Her eyes narrowed sharply. “Generous in what way?”
“My friends and family must find their own women.”
“Don’t you dare be wretched,” she warned him. “I’m out here at the very ends of?—”
“Civilization?” he queried.
“Amid hostiles, and you’re the worst of them!” she assured him.
“Want to lose a nose?” he taunted.
“Want to lose something worse?” she countered quickly.
