Ashes in the Wind (63 page)

Cole had second thoughts as to her charity when she slapped the frigid bulk of snow onto his leg, almost bringing him straight out of the bed. And if that was not enough, she nearly scalded him again, this time with a steaming towel still dripping wet from the kettle.

“Be careful with that thing!” he yelped. “You could end our hopes for a family altogether.”

“I’ll try to be more careful,” Alaina apologized, sweetly contrite. “But I don’t think you have anything to worry about, my love.”

Olie and Miles wrestled in Cole’s large leather chair as Alaina withdrew the lukewarm linen from his leg, replacing it with more snow. Covering his
nakedness, Cole watched the men. The removal of his chair from the study foretold a change in his habits. He could no longer closet himself in seclusion, but then, a more appealing condition appeared in the offering. To be ensconced in a bedroom with a fetching wench was not altogether displeasing.

Though not tutored in the ways of cures or medicines, Alaina found her meager knowledge successful. By evening the swelling had gone down, and with his leg carefully propped, Cole was able to rest peaceably. To keep Alaina pacified, he stayed in bed through the next day, but no amount of cajoling would keep him bedridden the following morning.

D
ECEMBER
had come upon them with a flourish, and the north wind blew its snow-laden breath across the land, cloaking the countryside with a mantle of white. Mindy, who had never known the import of the season, listened with enraptured awe as Alaina spun tales of fact and fancy about the event. In anticipation, the child hung a stocking from the parlor mantel and eagerly awaited the day, while Alaina diligently fashioned the remains of the charred black and yellow evening dress into a tiny gown for the new china doll that Cole had purchased for the girl. He constructed a wooden crib for the old rag doll and placed the gifts away in the attic in readiness for the holiday.

Horace Burr journeyed back for a visit one day, and thereafter Cole held tight rein on his own impatience to present a very special gift to his young wife on Christmas morn. Alaina planned her own surprise beyond the smoking jacket she made for her husband, and in preparation for the more important gift sent a servant to bid Braegar Darvey to stop by the house for a few moments while Cole was in St. Cloud attending to business.

It was not in her scheme that her husband should finish his business early and return home.
The presence of Braegar’s horse was cause enough to tweak Cole’s temper, and to find the parlor door closed against intrusion, set all the old jealousies astir. If the man’s friendship had not held him from pressing Roberta into an affair, then surely with Alaina, being the more desirable of the two, the Irishman would be wont to press his attentions upon her all the more readily. Cole was determined that such a thing would not happen again.

He brushed past the waiting butler and pushed the sliding doors of the parlor wide. Braegar had been leaning forward in his chair, his head close to Alaina’s and a drink dangling from his fingers, but as Cole opened the doors, he straightened and leaned back, sipping from the glass with casual demeanor.

Cole handed his hat to Miles and shrugged out of his greatcoat. Favoring the two with a sneering leer, he leaned his cane against his leg and began to work his gloves off. Hesitantly Alaina rose and, smoothing her gown self-consciously, moved toward her husband, her eyes downcast and a warm blush pinkening her cheeks.

“By God,” Cole rasped, unable to find innocent cause for her obvious dismay except that of guilt. He glared at Braegar accusingly. “Every time I leave this house, I return to find you in it sniffing after my wife. From your zealous attentions, I would say you haven’t had a woman for some time.”

Alaina’s eyes widened and snapped steel gray with rage. “Cole! How can you say such a thing?”

“Because I know the bastard!”

“I invited him here,” she grittingly stated.

Cole stared at her, an array of fleeting emotions
crossing his face. The spurs of jealousy were sharp and pricked him to a painful depth. Huskily he answered her. “Then perhaps I’d better hear more of this, madam, because I know you can’t be wanting for attention.”

The insinuation stung Alaina at a moment when she was most vulnerable.

“You utterly boorish oaf!” she choked and, bursting into sobs, fled the room and raced across the hall. She flung her cloak about her shoulder and slammed the door behind her as she left the house.

Cole would have gone after her, but with quick, running steps, Braegar caught him at the front door and, having the advantage of at least a hundred pounds, slammed him face forward against it.

“Your wife sought out my services, Doctor Latimer,” the Irishman snarled, “because she wanted to be sure of the signs before broaching the subject with you. Like it or not, man, you will become a father in the summer.”

Cole’s eyes grew wide and, with a burst of strength, he pushed the heavier man aside. Reaching again for the door, he flung it open. As he ran out onto the porch, the cutter was just moving away from the house. Alaina cracked the whip to urge the mare into a faster pace, ignoring his cry.

“Alaina! Wait!”

The only mount present was Braeger’s, and that one’s ownership gave Cole no pause whatsoever. For a man of hampered ability, he was down the steps in a thrice and, snatching the reins from the hitching post, swung onto the horse’s back. The stallion skidded on the hardpacked snow and ice as it pranced in
a wide circle, skittish beneath the unfamiliar weight. Cole’s bootheels dug into his sides, and the steed caught the full import of the message. He leaped forward and charged after the fleeing cutter. The stallion drew abreast of the racing conveyance, but when Cole shouted for Alaina to stop, she ignored him and cracked the whip harder. It was a breakneck race down the slippery lane, and Cole urged his mount on ever faster until he could crowd the mare into the deeper snow and brush that grew alongside the road. The mare was forced to slow and finally the cutter, plunging through the low, snow-covered growth, dragged her to a halt. Braegar’s stallion pranced several steps farther
in a splendid neck-arched display despite Cole’s best efforts. Impatiently he jerked the headstrong stud into a reluctant halt and dismounted.

Alaina had been caught in an upheaved plume of snow and came to her feet, brushing its fine powder from her face and cloak as she gasped against its icy sting. Breathlessly she sobbed, “You blithering, bluebellied—cutthroat excuse for Yankee sawbones!”

She seized the reins, trying to urge the mare out of the snowdrift, but Cole ran toward them.

“Alaina, calm down before you hurt yourself,” he cried. Nearing the frightened animal’s head, he reached up to grab the bridle. But as he did so, his feet slipped, and he slammed into the mare’s shoulder. The horse reared, jerking the bridle from his grasp. Cole fell flat on his back beneath the steed’s pawing hooves, and with a strangled cry, Alaina came to her feet. The animal came down, and her hoof landed squarely on Cole’s right thigh. There
was an audible snap as the bone gave, then the brittle air was set atremble as a hoarse scream of pain broke from Cole’s lips.

Frantic, Alaina scrambled out of the cutter and, heedless of any danger to herself, ran around in front of the horse, throwing up her arms with a shout until the mare sidled away from this new threat. When the animal regained the hard-packed snow of the lane, she stood snorting and trembling, though gradually she calmed. Cole rolled in agony in the snow, his teeth gnashing in pain until Alaina fell to her knees beside him and caught his twisting shoulders in her arms.

“Oh, Cole darling, be still,” she whispered urgently. “You’ll only do more damage.”

He caught the collar of her cloak and pulled her close above him, pressing his face against her bosom as he hammered his will into iron self-control.

“The beast!” he snarled through gritted teeth. “That damned evil beast! She’s cost me my leg for sure.”

“Hush, my darling,” Alaina pleaded. Slipping the skirt of her heavy cloak beneath his thinly clad back, she wrapped him in its warm confines and rolled the hood into a pillow, shivering violently as the cold wind penetrated her velvet gown. “Don’t try to move. I’m going back for help.”

“Wait!” Cole gasped, fighting the pulsing flood of agony that threatened to engulf him.

Alaina leaned toward him as he caught her hand. “I’m just going for help,” she assured him gently. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Alaina”—he grimaced as the tide of pain washed over him, and he struggled to resist its
assault. “I’m sorry—for what I said. It’s just that—I lost you once—I don’t want to lose you again. And I cannot trust Braegar. He seduced Roberta—and got her with child—and then sent her off to some back room hovel to get rid of it.”

Understanding dawned in Alaina’s mind and swept away all the hurt she had felt at his words. Though she couldn’t believe that Braegar was of such low character that he would cuckold his best friend and inadvertently kill that one’s wife, she knew that Cole believed Braegar to be guilty of all he accused.

Blinking at the moisture that blurred her vision, she snuggled the cloak more warmly about his neck. “I told you before, Yankee, I am not Roberta, and whatever she did has nothing to do with me.”

“I’ll never—make the comparison again,” he rasped, trying to smile.

“Then hold on to this thought while you’re waiting for me,” she whispered, caressing his cheek and gazing down into the clear blue of his eyes. “We’re going to have a child, and so you’ll never doubt my loyalty or love, he’ll have the biggest, brightest blue eyes on the face of this earth.”

“She!” Cole corrected. He paused a moment, gritting his teeth against the white shards of pain that were shooting up his leg, then managed a further statement. “I have a fancy for a wee daughter who has her mother’s nose and mouth.”

Alaina smiled tenderly and, brushing a soft kiss upon his chilled lips, rose to her feet. Her shoes slipped on the hard snow as she struggled toward
the stallion. Catching the dangling reins, she tossed them over the mane, then grasped the high saddlehorn and placed her foot in the stirrup to haul herself astraddle, no mean feat with a full skirt. The heels of her light slippers thudded hard against the mount’s ribs until he scrambled and clawed his way up the ice-crusted lane. As soon as she came in sight of the house, she waved an arm frantically to Braegar who stood on the porch waiting the return of his mount.

“Ring the bell three times!” she shouted. “Cole’s been hurt!”

With the signal of distress pealing through the wintry air, Alaina whirled the horse about and went thundering back the way she had come. By the time Braegar came panting down the hill, she had Cole’s head cradled in her lap. The Irishman quickly doffed his greatcoat and placed it around Alaina’s shoulders, then laid his attention to the broken leg.

It was only a few moments later when a wagonload of men came careening around the road from the barn. At Braegar’s bidding, they lifted Cole into the bed of the wagon, taking care not to unduly jostle his leg. Even so, the effort cost Cole his grip on consciousness, and he fell into the black void of oblivion.

“It’s just as well,” Braegar stated. “Let’s get him to the house before this frigid clime takes a further toll on his health.”

Braegar and Alaina rode with Cole, while Olie and Saul simultaneously took to the wagon seat and the other hands returned on foot to the barn. When the wagon reached the house, the three men carried
Cole to the upstairs bedroom. Miles fetched Braegar’s black bag with its full complement of ominous instruments, and while Annie set kettles of water boiling on the cookstove, Mrs. Garth collected several bottles of brandy and, as bade, left them beside the bed.

Firmly, Braegar set Alaina from the room, bidding Saul to stay, for as the black had more of a knowledge of healing and medicinal cures than the others, the Irishman chose to enlist his aid.

Alaina waited in her old bedroom, restlessly pacing the floor and anxiously twisting her hands as the moments dragged into an hour and an hour into an enternity. Dusk had begun to settle over the land before the bathing chamber door creaked open and Braegar came in with a piece of cloth folded in his hands.

“It was a clean break and not difficult to set,” he stated.

“But what took so long?” she questioned anxiously.

Braegar turned the cloth in his hand and gave her a considered grin. “It just might be the best break that muleheaded ape has had since he married you.” He carefully unfolded the cloth and showed her a jagged, slightly curved strip of metal of a spotty blackish hue. “I took the initiative and found this after a bit of digging around. It was loosened by the break, and though I fear Cole will miss it, he’s probably better off without it.”

“But will he be all right?” she pressed.

Braegar pursed his lips and slowly nodded. “If he doesn’t take on an infection, the leg should be better than before.” He lifted a small brown vial from his bag
and laid it in her hand. “This is laudanum. Just a small spoonful should do when the pain gets bad, or when he needs to sleep. I know he hates the stuff, but it will help him rest, and his leg needs that.”

Alaina followed him down the stairs. “Will you come back tomorrow?”

Braegar nodded again as he donned his hat and coat. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. At last I have that skinny oaf just where I want him.”

He noticed her puckered brow and laughed heartily. “He can’t kick me out, and he can’t get away. This time I’m going to have it out with him once and for all and find out just what is bothering him.”

Alaina opened her mouth to warn him of the seriousness of Cole’s beliefs, but as Miles waited beside the door to let the doctor out, she refrained, not wishing to air personal matters before the servants, though she had great doubts whether too much escaped them.

Alaina had no more than dozed off when a light stirring in the master bedroom brought her to full alertness. She slipped out of the bed in her old room and donned a pair of slippers against the chill of the cold floor before she made her way through the bathing chamber. Cole lay still in the bed, though the light of the flickering fire betrayed the fact that his eyes were open. She passed the bed and laid a fresh log on the fire, completely unaware in a fresh naive way of the figure she made as the firelight cast shadows through the light fabric of her gown. Even the pain in Cole’s leg could not quench the sudden rush of blood to his loins or the trip-hammer pounding in his chest.

Fascinated with the way the gown puckered tauntingly over the cold tightened peaks of her bosom, he watched her in silence as she moved about the room. She paused beside the bed for a moment, soft sympathy shining in her eyes, then a shiver shook her body as the inescapable chill of the house crept through the gown. Cole reached out his arm and turned down the covers beside him, and Alaina gladly accepted the invitation. When she was snuggled closely against his side, she lay her head back against his arm to better observe his face. Her hand rested on his furry chest, and she was boldly aware of the deliberate thudding of his heart beneath it.

“I love you,” she whispered and sighed. “Though I would have been the last to admit it, I think I loved you even before that night you took my virginity.”