Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WayWard Wind (5 page)

"I imagine they are, but they won't come down here to get him," Snake declared.

Peyton got up from the chair and went back to the pot into which she poured the jar of tomatoes before striking a match and lighting the wood stove. She said nothing as she worked, mulling over what the old woman told her. She felt Snake's eyes on her, assessing her, but she pretended not to notice.

"Ain't you curious 'bout why he calls me Snake?" the old woman asked.

Adding pepper to the stew pot, Peyton glanced at her. "A bit."

"My given name is Coronella," Snake told her. "The
Coronella austriaca
is better known in Scotland as the smooth snake."

"Oh, I see," Peyton said.

"Boy has a mean sense of humor at times," Snake stated as she shifted in the rocker to tap her pipe against a tin can. "Comes from all that book learning he did back in his younger days across the ocean."

The door opened and Harper came in with a brace of rabbits that he brought over to Peyton. "I'll cut them up for you," he said.

"I can do it," she said though from the expression on her face it was obvious to him she'd rather not.

"I'll do it."

He worked efficiently beside her and when he had the meat cut into small stew size pieces, washed them off then dropped them into the pot. Wiping his hands on a towel, he leaned his hip against the cabinet and watched her as she made biscuits. "You really do know how to cook," he observed.

"Are you surprised I'm not a useless female?" she asked.

"Aye," he replied. "But glad to see you aren't." He tossed the towel aside and went to sit beside Snake.

"Where in Scotland were you born, Sloan?" Peyton asked.

"Inverness," he answered. "In the Highlands."

"But that isn't where you're from is it, Miss Coronella?"

Harper shot his grandmother a surprised look. "You told her your name?"

"I did," Snake snapped. "What of it?" She held his stare for a moment then looked away. "Nah, girl. I hail from far above the border up Canada way. My folks came there from Italy. It was up Dawson City way that my daughter met up with Sloannie's pa, who’d thought to do a bit of mining up that way. The boy's pa was running away from
his
pa."

"He came to North America to make his own fortune," Harper corrected.

"Your father was running away from his pa who wanted him to marry some fancy countess or the like," Snake declared. "And don't you be saying otherwise, boy!"

"A countess?" Peyton asked, her eyebrows elevated. "I'm impressed."

"Don't be," Harper grumbled. “The woman was old enough to be his mother and apparently had no other prospects.”

“Are you saying Sloan’s grandfather had enough clout to negotiate a society match for his son?” She opened the oven to put the biscuits in.

"Sloannie's grandpa was a Duke or something of the kind," Snake said.

Harper growled as he bent forward to take off his boots. "You talk too much, old woman."

"Your father was a member of the royalty?" Peyton inquired.

"From the wrong side of the blanket, aye," Harper snapped. "He was the bastard son of Lord Edward Ferguson, the Duke of Warenstone. He came here to get away from all that crap and especially away from the sixty-four year old woman my grandfather was trying to tie him to."

"How old was he?"

"Twenty-four."

"But he must have eventually gone back to Scotland with his bride since you were born ...."

"My Anna-Lucia never married Gilbert Harper," Snake said. "Sloannie is just as much a bastard as was his father."

"She wouldn't marry him," Harper said, a muscle flexing in his jaw. "You know that."

"Yeah and you know why!" Snake threw at him before hiking herself up and stomping out of the cabin, slamming the door behind her.

Peyton watched Harper set his boots beside the fireplace. He was scowling fiercely so she left him alone as he leaned back in the rocker and stared up at the ceiling. Though she tried not to show it, she was afraid of him. He was a dangerous man and what he had done to her in the cave—even if it had been something she had secretly desired for many years—had been wrong and despite what he'd said, it had been rape.

She stared at him, thinking no phantom man of dreams who had scaled the balcony to take her could have ever been as handsome in her imagination as Sloan was in the flesh. Since she had wanted to be deflowered—although if truth were told not in the way he'd gone about it—she could have done much worse in her violator.

His hair was midnight black and curled lightly and thickly around his head. He wore it long to his collar and she could well imagine him tying it back with a leather thong when the mood struck. His eyes were a pale hazel green color that darkened noticeably when he was angered. A dark tan that set off the stark whiteness of his teeth only added to the allure of his purely masculine face. With broad shoulders, muscular arms and a chest that had just the right about of hair darkening it, he was a superb male specimen. Thinking back on how his bare chest had looked, she thought of the way a boarding school friend had described the ideal male chest ....

"The man must have a moderate amount of chest hair that grows just beneath the Suprasternal notch and across his collarbones. Just enough to run your fingers through. Let it taper nicely over his pectoral muscles and then arrow down into that sweet little tiger line that disappears below the waistband of their pants. Then it should return to full glory across the pelvic arch."

Sloan was a perfect example of what Dawn had described and then some.

She frowned sharply as she remembered his poor, ravaged back and her heart ached. How that must have hurt him. The scars were vicious and they crossed his back in wide stripes that would have taken days--if not weeks--to fully heal.

"What are you thinking, wench?" he asked her and she noticed his brogue was more pronounced.

She shook her head to clear it of the image of his torn flesh. "Nothing," she said and put a lid on the pot of stew.

“You looked like you were about to cry,” he accused.

“I wasn’t.”

“If you are worried about bearing a child out of wedlock, you need not be,” he told her.

Peyton’s forehead creased. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I mean we’ll be saying our marriage vows as soon as I can get you to a priest.”

She stared at him. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t stutter, wench,” he snapped. “I’ll not have a child of mine born illegitimate like his father and his father before him was. That’s a curse I wouldn’t wish on any child.”

She came over to him and took the rocker beside him. “We should talk about this, Sloan,” she said. “You can’t just blithely inform me you are going to marry me and then let it go at that.”

“What is there to talk about?” he countered. “You will marry me, wench. There’s no discussion to be had concerning it.”

“But I don’t even know you!” she said. “Why would you want to ...?” She narrowed her eyes as understanding hit. “You want your father’s ranch back.”

He snorted “I don’t want that land or have any need for it. I have no intention of returning to Texas.”

“But if I marry you ....”

He turned his direct gaze to her. “There’s no ‘if’ involved in it. You
will
marry me, wench, then you’ll go back to Texas--most likely with a bun in the oven--and live happily ever after. Tell me that’s not what you’ve wanted but thought you’d never have, wench.”

She mulled that over then slowly nodded. “True, I never thought to, but do you really think it’s going to be that easy for you?” She tilted her head to one side. “As soon as my father learns what you’ve done, he will send his own men after you. Those men won’t be hampered with laws or consciences. If I know him, he’ll have his attorneys annul the marriage as soon as he hears about it.”

“Won’t matter,” Harper said. “The important thing is that I did right by you and gave my child a name. Whether you choose to let him use it is up to you.”

Peyton smiled. “That’s assuming I get with child and that it’s a boy.”

“Aye.”

She got up and went to the stove to stir the stew and check on the biscuits, which she took a pot holder and removed from the oven. When he told her the biscuits smelled good, she smiled. “I hope they taste as good as they smell. It’s been a while since I’ve made biscuits.” She glanced at him and noticed he was rubbing his right temple, his eyes narrowed as though he had a bad headache.

“You’re staring again,” he mumbled and slumped back in the rocker.

“Why does that bother you so much?” she asked, returning to the chair she’d vacated.

He didn’t answer, just kept rubbing his temple.

Snake came sauntering back in and her hands and face were clean this time. “Supper ‘bout ready?” she inquired.

“In about ten minutes,” Peyton replied. She got up again to set the table and as soon as she did, Snake took the rocker.

“You got one of them megrims, boy?” she asked, her eagle eyes on Harper and when he ignored her, she sighed loudly. “Want me to get the laudanum?”

“No,” he stated and got up to go to the sink to wash up.

“You have migraines?” Peyton inquired from the table.

“Aye,” he admitted as he splashed cold water onto his face. He muttered thank you when she handed him a clean, dry towel with which to dry off.

“Soup’s on, Miss Coronella,” Peyton called out.

“Damn if I don’t like the way you say that name, girl,” Snake said.

“Snake sounds so disrespectful,” Peyton declared.

“She’s as mean as a cornered one,” Harper said.

“I should have been around to whip your ass when you was younger and you wouldn’t be so goddamned pissy,” Snake commented as she pulled out her chair and sat down. “Goddamned governess sure didn’t do you no favors rearing you.”

“I got plenty of whippings from my grandfather,” Harper told her.

At Peyton’s inquisitive look, Snake explained, “Sloannie’s ma and pa left him over in Scotland to be brought up by that fancy crowd and they came back to Canada.” She took the plate of biscuits Peyton passed to her and took four of the ten. “My Anna-Lucia thought it was best the boy be raised amongst gentry instead of in a cat house.”

Peyton’s lips parted and she turned to give Harper a stunned look. “I don’t suppose that means a place where they make whips.”

Snake chuckled. “Use ‘em but don’t make ‘em there,” she said with a twinkle. “I’m speaking of a whorehouse, girl.”

Harper refused to meet Peyton’s shocked look. “My mother worked in the house my grandmother ran in Dawson City.”

Slowly turning her head toward Snake, Peyton’s eyebrows shot up. “You were a madam?”

“One of the goddamned finest in the whole of the Yukon,” Snake bragged. “One of the prettiest, too.”

“And the most humble,” Harper mumbled as he ladled stew onto his blue enamel plate.

“Hell, ain’t no call to be modest when you know you’re the best, boy,” Snake said. “I done told you that how many times now?”

“More than I care to remember,” Harper answered. He sat back in his chair and put his hand to his head again.

“I don’t give a rat’s pecker what you say, I’m getting that laudanum,” Snake informed him and scooted her chair back.

“Will you at least let me have my supper before you force that shit down my throat?” he countered.

“Eat,” Snake said as she rummaged through a cupboard. “Ain’t stopping you.”

“Interfering old viper,” Harper grumbled as he shoveled stew into his mouth.

It was a strange relationship the grandmother and grandson had, but Peyton recognized affection when she saw it. She lowered her head and sighed wistfully. Family warmth was not something she’d ever experienced. Her father was a cold, brutal man and her mother had been fundamentally indifferent to everything save her silk dresses and jewels, although she had shown a degree of care when it came to Peyton’s health and well being. Her daughter chalked that up to being wary of angering her husband should anything bad happen to his solitary heir. Neither of her parents had given her much in the way of love. They had left that up to the succession of Mexican maids and cooks who had filtered through the ranch house.

Snake mixed a portion of the laudanum in a glass of water then brought it to the table, slapping it down beside Harper’s plate. “And don’t be gagging on it like you always do.”

“Sit down and eat, old woman,” Harper snapped. “Your food’s getting cold.”

“Ungrateful little whelp,” Snake commented as she set in to eating with a vengeance.

“So how old were you when you came to America?” Peyton asked.

“I was twenty-nine,” Harper answered. “I came over to have my father sign some papers regarding the disposition of my grandfather’s estate.”

“Boy was a lawyer over there,” Snake said with pride evident in her husky voice.

“A solicitor,” Harper corrected.

Peyton frowned. “How did you get so proficient with a gun if you were a solicitor?” she inquired.

“Had a knack for it, he did,” Snake replied for him. “Strapped on a rig one day and spent the rest of it practicing his draw ‘til he had it down pat.” She glanced at her grandson. “Was a damned fine shot beforehand so he was a natural gunslinger, it seemed.”

“My grandfather was a champion marksman,” he said. “He taught me.”

“We’ll have to have a competition,” she suggested, “to see who’s best.”

Snake paused with a biscuit at her mouth. “You a sharpshooter, girl?”

Peyton’s face beamed. “I’ve been known to win a contest now and again.”

Harper snorted to that and continued eating, sopping his plate clean with the last biscuit.

“Take that elixir now, boy,” Snake demanded. “Ain’t going to do you no good just sitting there in the glass.”

With a distinctly disgusted look on his face, Harper wrapped his hand around the glass, put it to his lips and tilted it back, pinching his nostrils closed with his free hand.

“Ain’t nothing but an overgrown child,” Snake complained.

“It tastes like shit,” Harper said, grimacing as he put the empty glass on the table.

“You been eating shit, boy, to know how it tastes?” Snake threw at him. “No wonder you don’t eat what I put before you!”