“Well, it’s not over yet. Many have seen the future in their dreams. There’s blood shed ahead for us all—” He looked at her again, then seemed to feel that he had spoken too freely and said the wrong things. “I’ll bring you into the house. Hawk will be waiting.”
Willow lifted her down from the wagon. Wolf, aware that he had arrived home, jumped from the back as well, barking excitedly. Even as Skylar’s feet touched the ground, three men appeared in the shadows, coming toward the wagon. “Lady Douglas,” Willow said, pointing to each man as he spoke, “Jack Logan, who runs the cattle herd.” Jack was a tall, wiry white, quick to tip his hat to her. “Rabbit works with Jack.” Rabbit was nearly as tall but heavily muscled and pure Indian. “And this here small fellow with the gaping grin is Two Feathers.” Two Feathers, as well, was Indian. He was a boy of about twelve, and he did have a wonderful, friendly smile. Skylar returned it. “Hello,” she said to them all.
“We weren’t expecting no bride out here,” Jack Logan told her awkwardly, “just his Lordship back,” he added, sorrowfully inclining his head toward the coffin. “But anything you need, Lady Douglas, you come to any of us.”
“Thank you.”
“You go on up to the house now, ma’am. We’ll be bringing in his Lordship.”
Willow held her arm, escorting her up the steps to the porch and then to the huge wooden doors that opened to the foyer of the house. She just stared at the doors, at their size and obvious weight.
“He had ’em brought over from Scotland. Things came by steamship, by railroad, then overland on wagons through hostile territory. Quite a feat.”
Skylar agreed but said nothing because the doors had opened.
“Do come in.”
It was Hawk’s voice that greeted her. As she stepped into the grand foyer, newly amazed by the pure beauty of the house, she wondered how long he had been at the mansion. He had changed into a white shirt with slightly frilled sleeves, a black frock coat, and pants. He seemed every inch the absolute master of his domain, guiding her into the entry where her attention was drawn from him to Mayfair itself. The entry floor was marble, surrounded by highly polished hard wood. A curving staircase also made of marble led to the second floor, while double doors on either side of the entry led to other rooms. It was immense. It might have been opulent, but everything that might have been overdone was subdued instead, giving the place a feel of both elegance and comfort.
“The master bedroom is that second door off the main hallway leading from the staircase,” Hawk said to her, looking past her to the coffin being borne to the house by the men. “Sandra!” he called. An exotic young woman in a simple calico frock and apron came from the left doorway, drying her hands on her apron, and looking curiously at Skylar. Skylar was certain she returned the scrutiny, for she didn’t think she’d ever seen a woman quite as different—or beautiful—as this one. There was Oriental blood in her as well as white and Indian. Her eyes slanted slightly upward, their color unbelievably dark.Her hair was loose, hanging down past her shoulders in blue-black strands that glowed in the dimmest light. Her face was a gamine’s, heart-shaped, intriguing as it was lovely.
“Sandra, Lady Douglas has arrived. If you would be so good as to show her to her room…”
Sandra ceased staring at Skylar to make a small bow toward her. “Lady, if you will…”
“Your trunk will be brought up,” Hawk told her. “Sandra will see to anything you need. When you’re settled, someone will bring you back down.”
“As you wish,” she murmured.
“No, my dear, as you wish,” he said, mockery tinging the polite words. She felt him watching her as she followed Sandra up the stairway.
“This way, Lady Douglas,” the girl told her, opening the door to the room for her. Skylar stepped into it, amazed once again at the old-world elegance that had found its way into a hostile land.
The bedroom was huge, with double doors leading to a porch. A huge four-poster bed with dragon claws and wings was the centerpiece of the room, which also contained a dressing table and two heavy bureaus. The brocade bedcover was crimson and forest green, showing hunting scenes. The pattern was repeated in the drapes. The hardwood floor was clean and polished but mostly covered with a Persian carpet that picked up the crimson colors in the bedding and draperies. An Oriental dressing screen stood in the far-left corner of the room next to a cherry wood washstand. Against the wall opposite the bed was a large fireplace with a marble and gilded mantle, bronze wall sconces on either side of it to light the room. A copper bath was in front of the fireplace, steam rising from it, while a rack with heavy linen bath sheets had been set close enough to it for the fire to warm the sheets. She could scarcely believe that she was at the very edge of the civilized world.
“Is everything satisfactory?” Sandra inquired politely.
Skylar nodded, awed. “Very.”
There was a tap at the door. Two Feathers had arrived, carrying her heavy traveling trunk. “Where would you like this, Lady Douglas?”
“Down!” she said, laughing. “It must be very heavy.”
“It is not so heavy,” the boy said indignantly, but setting the trunk down as he had been bidden. He looked at Sandra, then back to Skylar. “We didn’t know you were coming. We could have—done more.”
“Everything seems fine.”
“Hawk didn’t know you were coming.”
“Things have been very—confused.”
She thought that Sandra sniffed derisively, but when she turned to stare at the exotic woman, she had taken hold of young Two Feathers’s arm and was leading him out of the room. “There is a bellpull by the bed, Lady Douglas.” She said the last words as if they caused her great pain. “You may call when you wish to go down.”
“Thank you,” Skylar told her, watching her curiously. What role did the girl play in the household?
The two left the room, closing the door behind them. For a moment, she simply stared around the room again, awed. She walked toward the fire, suddenly needing to warm her hands, then she spun around to stare at the room again. She closed her eyes, remembering how she had sat with Lord Douglas at his table at the inn in Baltimore. She had needed to move fast, really fast, and she had known it. But after the friendship they had shared, she couldn’t just desert him and disappear. She hadn’t even wanted to sit, she had been so anxious and so nervous, so very aware that she had to flee. But he had insisted that he had to understand her, understand what had happened. Then he had been grave. “I’ve suggested you come with me before?—”
“I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be right. And if someone were to waylay me along the path, you might be implicated. I?—”
