Frontier Bride

One of the stranger’s dark eyebrows went up. Then he smiled and threw his hands up in a gesture of apology. “I’m sorry, mistress. I just assumed…I had been told that you were a widower, Webster.”

“Yes, that is…” Randolph cleared his throat.

Hannah took a step back into the relative security of the kitchen, then tipped her head up to look the tall stranger directly in the eyes. “My name is Hannah Forrester,” she said with quiet dignity. “I am Mr. Webster’s servant.”

The man shot a look back at Randolph, then said slowly, “Mr. Webster is a lucky man.”

He was different from the other men in the room. It wasn’t just the beard, since there were two or three others who looked as if it had been awhile since they’d felt the sharp edge of a blade. It was something about his height and the way he was…filled out. Hannah didn’t know exactly how to describe it. His shoulders almost blocked her view of the rest of the room. His breeches were not the customary wool or linsey, but rather a fine doeskin that clung to muscular thighs in a way Hannah had not seen in the ordinary gentleman who frequented the tavern.

She retreated one more step into the kitchen. The stranger hadn’t stopped looking at her. “I believe you wanted ale,” she said, trying to keep her voice even.

Randolph Webster had recovered his poise. Still blocking Trask, he clapped a hand on the stranger’s back. “An honest mistake, Reed,” he said heartily. “And I’m sure Hannah would be happy to bring us something to drink if my mother-in-law is busy in the kitchen. Would you be so kind, Hannah?”

Hannah took a deep breath and looked down at the floor. “Of course. If I may, Mr…er…Reed?” She reached to take back the tray he’d been balancing easily on one arm.

“Ethan Reed, ma’am, at your service. I’m most pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He bowed to her once again, a formal bow as though they were standing in the middle of St. James’s palace. Then his eyes sought hers once more. Hannah was sure that her face was the color of Mr. MacDougall’s finest claret.

She turned quickly back into the kitchen. For once the steamy room seemed cooler than the front taproom. Mistress MacDougall had removed her apron and was drying her hands. She had witnessed the exchange and said in a low voice, “I’ll see to them, Hannah, if you prefer.”

Hannah shook her head. “No.” She would just as soon stay busy. With Mistress MacDougall’s help, she prepared a tray of cheese, cold chicken and bread.

Her heart had resumed its normal beat, and she decided that her overly strong reaction to Mr. Reed had been due to the fact that she was tired. She’d been up much of the night tending to Jacob’s croup. “Who is that man?” she asked Mistress MacDougall.

“Marry, girl. That’s Captain Reed. He was with Rogers’s Rangers, you know. We had some of them here at the inn a couple years ago, and a rowdier bunch of wild men you’ve never seen.”

“He’s a captain?”

“Well, not anymore. The war’s over now, of course. The French have hightailed it up to Canada and the Indians have calmed down—except for that Pontiac fellow.”

Hannah lifted the heavy tray and glanced toward the door to the front room. “Were the Rangers all so… big?” she asked.

Mistress MacDougall chuckled. “Captain Reed’s not big, lass, he’s just bonny. A fine specimen of manhood, if ye ask me.”

“What’s he doing with Mr. Webster?”

The older woman’s smile died. “Well ye may ask, child. I’m very much afraid the captain is here to take ye, Randolph and my dear Prissy’s bairns so far from here that I’ll never gaze upon ye again.”

It was long past sundown. The evening had grown so cool that it felt as if winter were attempting to sneak back. Hannah got up to close the tavern windows, then returned to her rocking chair with a yawn. At the far end of the room, the men were still poring over Captain Reed’s drawings and maps. Randolph Webster sat with Jacob on one knee and Peggy clinging to his side. The children had had so little time with their father lately that they both looked as if they would be willing to stay in his company all evening. But Hannah could see dark circles of fatigue on their pale cheeks. She wanted to take them and head back up the lane to the Websters’. Perhaps Jacob would sleep through the night tonight after taking some of his grandfather’s posset. The warmth of the fire felt good against her face. Her eyelids grew heavy.

“They’ve worn you out, Mistress Forrester.”

Again the rich voice jolted her. She straightened and twisted her head to find its owner. “It’s late for the children,” she managed to say.

“It’s not the children who I see dozing by the fire like a well-fed kitten.” His dark eyes teased.

Hannah was at a loss for words. She was not used to carrying on a conver-sation with a male. Though she had spoken a few times to the gentlemen who had visited Mr. Webster at his home, the conver-sation had always been circumscribed to her duties as a servant. Before that…well, her mother had made certain that Hannah’s exposure to men of any age was as limited as possible.

Hannah could still hear her voice. “I’ll not see you follow in the path of yer wretched mum, girl—flowery in the head after a few pretty words from a finelooking gent, then thrown over as neatly as an apple core pitched into the gutter. With a babe in my belly and not a farthing in my purse.”

It had been the litany of her childhood.

Captain Reed leaned closer. “They do feed you well, don’t they, mistress?”

Hannah found the question absurd. She straightened the rocker, almost knocking him in the chin. “I feed myself, Captain Reed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’d best bundle up the children and take them home.”

He stepped around her chair and crouched down next to the fire. The position looked natural to him, as though he spent many hours in places where there was not a chair to be had.

“I was hoping to talk with you, mistress. It’s been a long, dry spell since I’ve been in feminine company.”

The words cajoled, but it was his smile that kept her rooted to her seat. She glanced across the room to where the other men still seemed engrossed in their papers. “Don’t you need to be over there—planning or routing or…something?”

“My routes are in here,” he said, tapping the side of his head with his finger. His hair was a deep, rich brown and he wore it long, not pulled back into the customary queue. His short dark whiskers emphasized the rugged line of his jaw.

“You know the wilderness well?” she asked after a moment.

He grinned. “Well now, I’m not a man to boast. Let me put it this way. Before I round a bend of the Ohio, I can tell you how many marsh rats we’ll find nesting on the other side.”

Hannah laughed. Ethan Reed’s utter lack of humility both irritated and fascinated her. Some of her nervousness subsided. Here was a man who actually knew this land Mr. Webster had described so glowingly and in such detail. “Is it as rich as they say? As beautiful?”

“The Ohio River valley’s richer than anything these colonies have seen. One of these days people will be clamoring to own a piece of it. You folks are lucky to be among those getting there first.”

“Do you ‘own a piece of it,’ Captain?”

He shook his head. “I’m not exactly the settling-down type, Mistress Forrester. I figure, why should I limit myself to a little piece of paradise when I can freely roam the whole thing?”

“But, surely, now that families are moving into the area, you’ll not feel quite so independent?”

“The tiny little chunks of land you folks will hack out of the wilderness won’t change things much.”

Hannah looked puzzled. “I thought Mr. Webster said that the tracts would be upward of two hundred acres.”

Reed laughed, rich and low. “There’s hundreds of thousands of acres out there, mistress. Your little portion of it won’t amount to more than a fly speck.”

Hannah shifted her eyes to the fire. “Not my portion, Captain Reed. I’m just going along to care for Mr. Webster’s children. At the end of three years I’ll return here to the city to seek employment.”

Reed was silent for a long moment. When Hannah turned back to him, he was looking at her with a half smile and eyes that had grown suddenly intense. “I’d not place a wager on that, mistress,” he said softly.

She wanted to look away again, but his gaze held hers. “Why not?” she asked. Her mouth suddenly felt dry.

“Webster’s not that big a fool.”

It was the second time that day she’d had to listen to insinuations about her relationship with Randolph Webster. Hannah gripped the arms of the rocker and said stiffly, “Mr. Webster is my employer, Captain Reed. He has just lost his beloved wife. And if we’re all to be traveling together, I’ll thank you not to embarrass the poor man with your preposterous comments.”

Reed was unruffled. “If not Webster, then some other man will snatch you up, Mistress Forrester. There’s a sore need for women on the frontier.”

Hannah stood briskly, setting the rocking chair swaying. “I’m not available to be ‘snatched,’ as you put it, Captain. I’m contracted to Mr. Webster, and that’s the end of it. In the future I’d appreciate it if you kept your speculations about my destiny to your-self.”