Tracie Peterson (9 page)

Logan laughed. “Who could help but overhear Lady Gambett and her suggestions? It hardly seemed possible to not hear the woman.”

Amelia tried to suppress her smile but couldn’t.
Oh, but this man made her blood run hot and cold. Hot and cold.
She remembered Logan stating just that analysis of her back in Greeley. Just when she was determined to be unaffected by him, he would say or do something that made the goal impossible. She started to reply when Lady Gambett began to raise her voice in whining reprimand to Henrietta.

“It would seem,” Amelia said, slowing allowing her gaze to meet his, “the woman speaks for herself.”

Logan chuckled. “At every possible opportunity.”

Lady Gambett was soon joined by Josephine, as well as Margaret and Penelope, and Amelia could only shake her head. “I’m glad they have each other.”

“But who do you have?” Logan asked Amelia quite unexpectedly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. You don’t seem to have a great deal of affection for your sisters or your father. Sir Jeffery hardly seems your kind, although I have noticed he gives you a great deal of attention. You seem the odd man out, so to speak.”

Amelia brushed bits of dirt from her riding jacket and fortified her reserve. “I need no one, Mr. Reed.”

“No one?”

His question caused a ripple to quake through her resolve. She glanced to where the other members of the party were engaged in various degrees of conversation as they saw to their tasks. How ill-fitted they seemed in her life. She was tired of pretense and noble games, and yet it was the very life she had secured herself within. Didn’t she long to return to England and the quiet of her father’s estate? Didn’t she yearn for a cup of tea in fine English china? Somehow the Donneswick estates seemed a foggy memory.

“Why are you here, Amelia?”

She looked up, thought to reprimand him for using her name, then decided it wasn’t so bad after all. She rather liked the way it sounded on his lips. “Why?” she finally questioned, not truly expecting an answer.

“I just wondered why you and your family decided to come to America.”

“Oh,” she said, frowning at the thought of her father and Sir Jeffery’s plans. There was no way she wanted to explain this to Logan Reed. He had already perceived her life to be one of frivolity and ornamentation. She’d nearly killed herself trying to work at his side in order to prove otherwise, but if she told him the truth it would defeat everything she’d done thus far. “We’d not yet toured the country and Lady Bird, an acquaintance of the family who compiled a book about her travels here, suggested we come immediately to Estes.”

“I remember Lady Bird,” Logan said softly. “She was a most unpretentious woman. A lady in true regard.”

Amelia felt the challenge in Logan’s words but let it go unanswered. Instead, she turned the conversation to his personal life. “You are different from most Americans, Mr. Reed. You appear to have some of the benefits of a proper upbringing. You appear educated and well-read and you have better manners than most. You can speak quite eloquently when you desire to do so, or just as easily slip into that lazy American style that one finds so evident here in the West.”

Logan grinned and gave his horse a nudge. “And I though she didn’t notice me.”

Amelia frowned. “How is it that you are this way?”

Logan shrugged. “I had folks who saw the importance of an education but held absolutely no regard for snobbery and uppity society ways. I went to college back east and learned a great deal, but not just in books. I learned about people.”

“Is that where you also took up religion?” she questioned.

“No, not at all. I learned about God and the Bible from my mother and father first, and then from our local preacher. The things they taught me made a great deal of sense. Certainly more sense than anything the world was offering. It kept me going in the right direction.”

Amelia nodded politely, but in the back of her mind she couldn’t help but wonder about his statement. Most of her life she had felt herself running toward something, but it was impossible to know what that something was. Her mother had tried to encourage her to believe in God, but Amelia thought it a mindless game. Religion required you to believe in things you couldn’t see or prove. Her very logical mind found it difficult to see reason in this.
If God existed, couldn’t He make Himself known without requiring people to give in to superstitious nonsense and outrageous stories of miraculous wonders? And if God existed, why did tragedy and injustice abound? Why did He not, instead, create a perfect world without pain or sorrow?

“I’ve answered your questions, now how about answering some of mine?” Logan’s voice broke through her thoughts.

“Such as?” Amelia dared to ask.

“Such as, why are you really here? I have a good idea that Lady Bird has very little to do with your traveling to America.”

Amelia saw her sisters move to where Jeffery stood and smiled. “My father wanted me to come, so I did. It pleased him and little else seemed to offer the same appeal.”

“Is he still mourning your mother’s passing?”

“I suppose in a sense, although it’s been six years. They were very much a love match, which was quite rare among their friends.”

“Rare? Why is that?”

Amelia smiled tolerantly. “Marriages are most generally arranged to be advantageous to the families involved. My father married beneath his social standing.” She said the words without really meaning to.

“If he married for love it shouldn’t have mattered. Seems like he did well enough for himself anyway,” Logan replied. He nodded in the direction of her father in conversation with Mattersley. “He is an earl, after all, and surely that holds esteem in your social circles.”

“Yes, but the title dies with him. He has no sons and his estates, well—” she found herself unwilling to answer Logan’s soft-spoken questions. “His estates aren’t very productive. My mother had a low social standing, but she brought a small fortune and land into the family, which bolstered my father’s position.”

“So it
was
advantageous to both families, despite her lack of standing?”

“Yes, but you don’t understand. It made my father somewhat of an outcast. He’s quite determined that his daughters do not make the same mistake. It’s taken him years to rebuild friendships and such. People still speak badly of him if the moment presents itself in an advantageous way. Were we to marry poorly it would reflect directly on him and no doubt add to his sufferings.”

“But what if you fall in love with someone your father deems beneath you?” Logan asked moving in a step. “Say you fall in love with a barbarian instead of a twit?” His raised brow implied what his words failed to say.

Amelia felt her face grow hot.
He is really asking what would happen if I fell in love with him.
His face was close enough to reach out and touch and as always that pesky mustache drew her attention.
What if?
She had to distance herself. She had to get away from his piercing green eyes and probing questions. “It could never happen, Mr. Reed,” she finally said, then added with a hard stare of her own, “Never.”

E
stes Park was like nothing Amelia had ever seen. Completely surrounded by mountains, the valley looked as though someone had placed it there to hide it away from the world. Ponderosa pine, spruce, and aspen dotted the area and Lord Amhurst was delighted to find the shrub-styled junipers whose berries were especially popular with the grouse and pheasants. She knew her father was becoming eager for the hunt. She had seen him eyeing the fowl while Jeffery had been watching the larger game.

They made their way slowly through the crisp morning air, horses panting lightly and blowing puffs of warm air out to meet the cold. To Amelia it seemed that the valley wrapped itself around them as they descended. Birds of varying kind began their songs, and from time to time a deer or elk would cross their path, pausing to stare for a moment at the intruders before darting off into the thicket.

Gone was the oppressive prairie with its blasting winds, insufferable heat, and swarming insects. Gone were the dusty streets and spittoons. The place was a complete contrast to the prairie towns she’d seen. Even the air was different. The air here, though thinner, was also so very dry and Amelia marveled at the difference between it and that of her native land. Already her skin felt tough and coarse and she vowed to rub scented oils and lotions on herself every night until they departed. But departing was the furthest thing from her mind. What had started out as an unpleasant obligation to her was now becoming rather appealing. She found herself increasingly drawn to this strange land, and to the man who had brought them here.

She silently studied Logan’s back as he rode. He was telling them bits and pieces of information about the area, but her mind wouldn’t focus on the words.

What if she did fall in love with a barbarian? What if she already had?

The lodge where they’d made arrangements to stay was a two-story log building surrounded by smaller log cabins. Lord Amhurst had arranged to take three cabins for his party, while Lord and Lady Gambett had decided to stay in the lodge itself. Lady Gambett had declared it necessary to see properly to the delicate constitutions of her daughters. This thought made Amelia want to laugh, but she remained stoically silent. Delicate constitutions had no place here and it would provide only one more weapon for Logan Reed to use against them. She was bound and determined to show Logan that English women could be strong and capable without need of anyone’s assistance. Amelia chose to forget that Lady Bird had already proven her case to Logan Reed two years ago.

“This place looks awful,” Margaret was whining as Mattersley helped to bring in their bags.

Amelia looked around the crude cabin and for once she didn’t feel at all repulsed by the simplicity. It was one room with two beds, a small table with a single oil lamp, and a washstand with a pitcher and bowl of chipped blue porcelain that at one time might have been considered pretty. A stone fireplace dominated one wall. Red gingham curtains hung in the single window and several rag rugs had been strategically placed in stepping stone fashion upon the thin plank floor.

“It’s quite serviceable, Margaret,” Amelia stated firmly, “so stop being such a ninny. Perhaps you’d like to sleep in a tent again.”

“I think this place is hideous,” Penelope chimed in before Margaret could reply. “Papa was cruel to bring us here, and all because of you.”

This statement came just as Logan appeared with one of several trunks containing the girls’ clothes. He eyed Amelia suspiciously and placed the trunk on the floor. “I think you’ll find this cabin a sight warmer than the tent and the bed more comfortable than the ground,” he said before walking back out the door.

Amelia turned on her sisters with a fury. “Keep our private affairs to yourselves. I won’t have the entire countryside knowing our business. Mother raised you to be ladies of quality and refinement. Ladies of that nature do not spout off about the family’s personal concerns.”

Margaret and Penelope were taken aback for only a moment. It mattered little to them that Logan Reed had overheard their conversation. Amelia knew that to them he was hired help, no different than Mattersley. They were quite used to a house filled with servants who overheard their conversations on a daily basis and knew better than to speak of the matters, even amongst themselves. Logan Reed was quite a different sort, however, and Amelia knew he’d feel completely within his rights to inquire about their statement at the first possible moment.

“I suggest we unpack our things and see if we can get the wrinkles out of our gowns. I’m sure you will want a bath and the chance to be rid of these riding costumes,” Amelia said, taking a sure route she knew her sisters would follow.

“Oh, I do so hope to sink into a tub of hot water,” Penelope moaned. At seventeen she was used to spending her days changing from one gown to another, sometimes wearing as many as six in the same day. “I’m positively sick of this mountain skirt or whatever they call it.”