Gray Hawk's Lady: Blackfoot Warriors, Book 1 (38 page)

He captured the lock of hair in his fingers and pulled it and her toward him. “And now I ask you the same question you just asked of me,” he said. “Do you wish to be released from me?”

“No, Gray Hawk. I—”

“Gen-ee, I…am glad.” His face was only a hairsbreadth away from hers. He kissed first one of her eyelids, then the other. He said, “I know what you want of me, my wife; what you would like to ask me; but understand, I could never leave my home. I have purpose there. I have none here, except helping your father.”

“But you could learn a trade, become experienced in something else.”

He breathed out deeply and looked up toward the ceiling. “And do you think I would be happy here?”

“You
could be.”

“Gen-ee.” He kissed her cheek, her temple, his lips teasing her earlobe as he spoke softly. He said, “Have you not seen how people in this town treat me? It is as though I were less than human. It is the same as it was at the trading post where I lived for a year. To others there, I was always the ignorant Indian, the good-for-nothing. And though I often tried to prove myself, even hunting for the entire post, I was never thought of as an equal, rarely even allowed to eat at the same table as the white men. Your father tries to be different. But it is only here in your house that I experience any sort of respect, and that is more toleration than anything else. I could not live long in a place like this.”

Genevieve didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to say. She understood what he said. She even agreed with it. Yet when he was close to her like this, when he spoke so reasonably…

She turned her face toward his, her lips kissing his cheek. “Oh, Gray Hawk, I am so confused. And I am unsure of myself. But of one thing I am certain: I have missed you at night.”

“And I, you. I would come to you if I did not care that it would offend your father.”

“Gray Hawk, please, I need you here with me. I’m not sure I wish to return with you, but I don’t want to lose you, either. Couldn’t you try to live here? We could go and visit your family sometimes, perhaps once every few years. You are intelligent. You could learn to—”

He put a finger over her lips.

“I would lose a part of me, Gen-ee, which is why I understand if you would be reluctant to leave here.”

“Gray Hawk,” she tried to bring his lips around to hers. “Gray Hawk, please, I… Please, my love. Please, kiss me.”

He did, his lips covering hers and his tongue sweeping into her mouth. And she swayed in toward him. “Gray Hawk, couldn’t you try it here, at least for a short time?”

He sighed He lifted his head just a little. “I will think on it Gen-ee. I will think on it. It is as much as I can promise you. At least for now.”

Two fireplaces had been stoked at both ends of the ballroom, throwing sparks, smoke and the fresh smell of burnt wood into the room. There were three different chandeliers, which, dripping wax alternately onto the hardwood floor or onto some poor, luckless person, lit up the room as though it were daylight.

Torches were burning at every entrance and all around the room. Windows were closed, the evening being a cool one, although the curtains remained open, allowing the ladies and gents to admire their images in the glass as they swirled around and around the ballroom floor.

Now and again a guest left through one of the three balconies, cold air and gusts of wind pouring into the room as the doors opened and closed.

But no one objected. There was too much wine, too much food and too much fun for anyone to take offense.

Guests continued to arrive in a steady flow. This party was, after all, the most major social event in the St. Louis community in quite some time.

Some of the people clung to the sidelines as they entered the room; some rushed toward the wine and the food; while others sped their way onto the dance floor. Wine and whiskey circulated through the crowd as though they were old friends, while a small orchestra played from the minstrel’s gallery, situated up high and at the very end of the hall.

Enticing melodies, seductive yet stately, streamed down from the lofty gallery, the strains unfamiliar to one lone Indian, who had never heard them before.

Gray Hawk stood at the edge of the crowd and stared up at the orchestra. He had always known the white man’s world was different from his own; he’d just never imagined how great that difference was. In truth, he couldn’t remember ever witnessing such a display of wealth.

He gazed out upon the dancers, still amazed that white society allowed such a public display of touching.

Still… He grinned to himself.
He
could dance this way with his Gen-ee.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it until now. But it occurred to him that he hadn’t had much time alone with her these past few days, and this would provide an excellent opportunity to hold her, even if it was in front of other people and only for a little while.

He glanced all through the crowd, looking for his wife, for her father, or any other familiar, face, even the brown face of another Indian.

He found nothing.

In truth, besides himself, he saw no other brown-skinned person in the crowd.

He felt a momentary twinge of resentment against such a thing. Why was no other Indian invited here?

He stepped farther into the room.

He heard a giggle. He glanced to his left. A female head turned away.

“Why, I never! A savage!” a feminine voice said.

“What could the viscount be thinking?”

Gray Hawk gazed over toward the two young women, both of them staring at him as though he were a sort of particularly distasteful insect.

Was something wrong with him?

He peered down at himself. Had he forgotten to wear some important piece of clothing…his breechcloth, perhaps?

He could see nothing amiss, dressed as he was in his white buckskin breechcloth, leggings and shirt, his very best. His leggings fitted tightly to his calf and thigh muscles, and each article he wore was sewn with porcupine quills and colorful beads. Across his back was his quiver full of arrows, and over his shoulder, his bow.

He looked back up. All his clothing was in order.

The two women were still scrutinizing him, their looks offensive.

And then he understood. He wasn’t certain why it had taken him so long to see it. These two women were acting as they were toward him
because he was Indian
.

Gray Hawk raised his eyebrows at the two ladies. Drawing an arrow from his quiver, taking his bow from around his shoulder, and placing it as though he might shoot it at any moment, he grinned widely at them. In truth, he winked.

The two young women gawked, looking more flustered than two prairie hens in a coyote den. One of the ladies flicked her fan open and fluttered it furiously in front of her. The other grabbed her friend and pulled her violently away, the two of them scurrying over to the farthest corner of the room.

Gray Hawk almost laughed aloud.

“Amusing yourself?”

Gray Hawk turned to confront a man he had never before seen: a young man with brown hair and large green eyes, his whole person perhaps not more than twenty-six or twenty-seven winters old.

Gray Hawk didn’t answer at once, and the other man went on to say, “I don’t know why I am bothering to speak to such an ignorant savage. It is only that I was given to understand that you, my good man, speak English.”

Gray Hawk didn’t respond, shrugging his shoulders and giving the young man a blank look.

“Leave it to that old gizzard to spread such a tale. Imagine, a Blackfoot Indian who speaks English. What a preposterous fib.” Here the other man sneered. “I shall ensure that the proper people know of this lie, and then we’ll see whose book will be published and whose will not. I have friends helping me in England, I tell you, and—”

“Ah, Mr. Toddman, I see that you have met my friend.” The elder Rohan had just come to stand at Gray Hawk’s back.

“Yes, quite.” Boredom fairly dripped from Toddman’s voice. He glanced at his fingernails. “I was just this moment trying to engage the young Indian in a conversation.” He fluttered his hand in Gray Hawk’s direction, Toddman’s gesture being more one of mockery. “I say, old man, the Indian has not said a single word.”

“Yes,” the viscount cleared his throat, “well, sometimes my young Indian friend has nothing much to say.”

Toddman sneered. “Yes, I daresay. And sometimes the Indian can’t speak
English
a’tall.”

Gray Hawk raised an eyebrow.

But the viscount barely seemed to notice. “I say, Toddman, so glad you could make it to my party. Wasn’t sure you would want to, what with your own book being done and sent off and all. But here I am rambling. Now, has no one made the introductions? Perhaps our Indian here stands on ceremony.”

Toddman made to laugh, the action more a ridicule.

“Mr. Toddman,” the viscount went on, “I’d like you to meet Gray Hawk, a member of the southern Pikuni tribe of the Blackfeet.”

It was only then that Gray Hawk grinned, his look resembling that of a man who had just counted first coup. He said—his speech, his actions exaggerated, English to a flaw—“Pleased, I’m sure,” and had the pleasure of watching the pompous Mr. Toddman’s eyes pop open.

Gray Hawk turned to the viscount. He said, his English terribly proper, “I am happy to see you, my friend.” And here Gray Hawk sent the young Englishman a look that even the devil might envy for its disdain. “I have much news to tell you, Viscount Rohan.”

It was the first time Gray Hawk had addressed his father-in-law by his proper aristocratic title. And it might be the only time. It didn’t matter. For the moment, it was apt.

Gray Hawk faced the viscount and, putting a hand upon older man’s back, led the man through the crowd, a certain Mr. Toddman left gaping after them.

“Don’t know why the man is here at my party,” said the viscount, “but I can’t very well throw him out, can I?”

Gray Hawk smiled as he said, “Can’t you?”

“Not without causing a scandal.”

“Sometimes a scandal is much preferable to the injury a man like that can do. He intends you nothing but the greatest of harm. And I believe he means to discredit you here tonight.”

“Can’t very well do that. I have your testimonial about your tribe, and I have that of many others. We’ll let the publisher decide whose book is the best. At least now the manuscript is done, and I have fulfilled my contract—and this, despite Mr. Toddman’s sabotage. I know you are one of the people I have to thank for that.”

Gray Hawk nodded. “It is nothing. You are the father of my wife, and—”

“Mr. Gray Hawk, I really must speak to you privately of that. I—”

“Yes,” said Gray Hawk. “I know. But I think now is not the time. By the way, that man, Toddman, said he has friends in England who will help him to publish his book.”

Viscount Rohan stopped suddenly. “He told you this?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Just now. He did not know at the time that I spoke English.”

The viscount appeared flustered. “He didn’t? But I told him that you spoke it perfectly.”

“He did not believe it.”

“I see.” Viscount Rohan turned to stare at Gray Hawk, having to look up to do so. “Did he say who these men are?”

“No.” Gray Hawk returned the elder Rohan’s look. “He did not. And in truth, I do not even know what this place, England, is, though I hear much said about it. I was hoping that, if I kept quiet long enough, Toddman would tell me more. But he didn’t.”

“Yes, well, when I return home, it will be easy enough to determine just who this is.”

Gray Hawk nodded.

“But come, my friend.” The viscount drew his arm through the Indian’s. “This is a party of celebration. It is the same sort of party I give every time I finish a manuscript. Whether this one is accepted or not makes no difference. The project is done, and you, my boy, helped me to save it. Come, has anyone shown you how to do these dances?”

Gray Hawk shook his head. “No,” he said. “But I would like to learn.”

The viscount beamed. “You shall, my boy, you shall.”

And without further ado, the elder Rohan led the Indian over into a far corner of a balcony, where, for a moment in time, no one would see them… dancing.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Genevieve twirled around the room on the arm of the captain of the guard, her antique white dress and her petticoats swirling around her with her every motion. Step, step, sweep, twirl, spin.

She smiled. It had been a long time since she had been to a dance. And she loved it so.

Her partner whisked her around as they neared a corner, and she glanced out into the crowd.

Gray Hawk.

So he had finally arrived. She’d been looking for him all night.

He stood alone within the crowd, seemingly oblivious to the stir he was creating all around him.

He hadn’t seen her.

Another rotation and she could see him no longer, though she strained over her partner’s shoulder to do so.