The back door banged as Wolfe strode out to the stable. Jessica waited until he disappeared before she turned and eyed the dishes with distaste.

Half an hour later, Jessica heaved the dirty dish-water off the back step, heard metal hit a rock, and saw a spoon lying on the ground. Sighing, she walked beyond the house and retrieved the spoon that she had somehow overlooked in the bottom of the dishpan.

As Jessica straightened from picking up the spoon, she heard the trill of a hidden bird and noticed that the willows around the spring held a green promise of summer’s leaves at the tips of their branches. Sunlight poured in rich, slanting fans between fluffy clouds that were so white it made her eyes water to look at them. The yellow warmth of the light was a balm and a benediction.

She tugged off the linen towel she had used as a headdress and shook out the clean coils of her hair. Theuntamned glory of the Western day poured down around her, lifting her heart.

Within the shadow of the small stable, Wolfe stood frozen in the instant when Jessica had shaken down a cloud of hair that burned beneath the unbridled sun. When she lifted her hands and spread them as though to catch sunlight itself, Wolfe felt a combination of hunger and tenderness that shocked him.

Motionless, barely able to breathe, Tree That Stands Alone watched while Jessica pirouetted slowly, curtsied, then held out her arms as though to a dance partner. As she glided, dipped, and turned with the grace of flame, Strauss’ latest waltz melody floated above the wild land, sung by a resilient elf whose beauty and cruel words were a knife turning in Wolfe’s heart.

No wonder you were called the viscount’s savage. You are unspeakable. If I had thought you would everdoanything so vile to me, I would never have sought a marriage.

Bitterly, Wolfe turned away from thesundrenched vision of an elf dancing; but there was nowhere he could turn away from the words echoing in his mind, cutting him in ways he couldn’t comprehend, only feel. Working by habit alone, he prepared for the trip ahead. It was too soon to risk the passes, but it was safer than staying trapped in his own house with Jessica burning like a flame locked within ice, forever beckoning, forever beyond his reach.

What am I complainingabout?Wolfeasked himselfruthlessly.Ifshe offered herself, I wouldn’t take her.

Wouldn’tyou?counteredanother part of himself.

Not on a golden platter with an apple in her mouth.

How about in bed with her softness parting for you like the petals of a rose?

No.

Like hell.

Hell is an apt description of what my life would be like afterward. No matter how hot Jessica makes my body, she isn’t the wife I need.

The sardonic catechism ringing in Wolfe’s mind wasn’t new, but it had the desired effect. By the time he walked through the sunlight back to the house, no trace showed of the unruly desire and painful yearning that had twisted through him. His face was impassive as he went to the bedroom and found Jessica standing amid a tumult of satins and silks.

The valises were open on the bed. One was full of books, a spyglass, small boxes of fishing lures, the segments of her split bamboo fly rod, a packet of embroidery needles and floss, and other items. Curious, Wolfe began lifting the books one after another.

«Coleridge, Burns, Blake, Donne, Shakespeare…» Wolfe set the heavy volume aside. «Leave this here. Willow has the Bard’s complete works.»

«I should have guessed a paragon would.»

«Leave the good clergyman behind, as well.»

«John Donne?» Jessica lifted dark mahogany eyebrows. «The paragon is well read.»

«The paragon’s husband, in this case. When you meet Cal, you’ll understand. He is a dark angel of retribution. Messrs. Donne and Milton suit him quite well.»

«Then ’tis fortunate Caleb married the paradigm of paragons,» Jessica said dryly. «What of the rest?»

«The poets?»

«Yes.»

Wolfe shrugged. «Bring them, if you must.»

«I thought you liked poetry.»

«I do. I happen to have a good memory.» Wolfe touched the volumes with gentle fingertips. «I can visit caverns measureless to man whenever I turn my mind to it. I can see the tiger’s fearful symmetry burning in the forest of the night whenever I like. And I can do it without giving my packhorse galls.»

Jessica smiled almost shyly at Wolfe. «If you’ll recite my favorite poems to me over the campfire, I’ll leave the books behind.»

He flashed her a black, sideways glance and saw the memories of other campfires in her aquamarine eyes, of the happy times when he and she had laughed together and traded lines of poetry while Indian guides and hunters alike crowded around, held by the rhythms and visions of men long dead.

«If you want poetry, you’d better take the books,» Wolfe said, turning away. «My days of reciting verse are over.»

Jessica’s smile faded. She turned back to packing. When she hesitated between two riding outfits, Wolfe took the heavier one and put it in the valise.

«You’ll need your warmest underwear,» he said. «The high country will be cold.»

«I looked for the trail clothes I left here years ago, but couldn’t find them.»

«I gave them to Willow last summer.»

Jessica’s mouth flattened. «Generous of you.»

«I gave her the boy’s saddle you used, too. Riding astride in buckskins is fine for a Western woman or a headstrong Scots child, but you’re neither. You’re the Lady JessicaCharteris, daughter of an earl. You will ride sidesaddle as befits your exalted station.»

«I’m JessicaLonetree.»

«Then you’ll ride as your husband thinks best.»

«Sidesaddle? Through those vast mountains I’ve heard so much about?» she asked, flinging an arm out to the west, where the Rockies thrust steeply into the sky.

«Exactly.»

«That’s unreasonable.»

«So is our marriage.»

«Wolfe,» she began softly.

«Say the word, lady Jessica. It has only threesyllables.Sayit.»

He waited for her tosayannulment.

There was a pause before she said distinctly, «Sidesaddle.»

«What?»

«Sidesaddle. Three syllables, I believe?»

Quickly, Wolfe turned away before Jessica could see the reluctant flash of humor in his eyes. He sorted through the piles of finery with ruthless hands, trying not to notice the gossamerpantelets and camisoles, trying not to remember how Jessica had looked with her ruined peignoir torn away from her breasts, revealing the marks of a man’s brutality on her luminous skin.

Odd that I didn’t hear Jessica screaming down the house thatnight, Wolfetold himselfsardonically.Butthen, it was a bloody lord’s teeth raking her rather than ahalfbreed bastard’s hand discovering how soft she was. All the difference in the world.

With a vicious word, Wolfe threw the undergarments into the valise. Another riding outfit followed. Jessica added woolen stockings. The valise was full to overflowing.

«You’d better throw some stuff out of the other valise,» Wolfe said, fastening straps. «You have only two changes of clothing.»

«Excellent. There will be that much less to wash.»

Wolfe smiled fleetingly, knowing Jessica couldn’t see his face. When he looked up from the valise, no trace of the smile remained on his face. His elfin enemy was entirely too good at finding chinks in the armor of his anger.

«I’m serious about the clothes,» he said, gesturing to the mounds of fine wool and silk dresses and dainty satin shoes that lay at the foot of the bed. «Wouldn’t you rather have these along than a fishing rod and books?»

«My silk dresses don’t know a single poem, and I doubt that I could catch even one of the fabled Rocky Mountain rainbow trout by casting a shoe at it.»

At first, Wolfe thought Jessica was teasing him again. Then he realized she meant it. She would rather take her poetry and fishing gear than one of her elegant outfits. It was the kind of choice the oldJessi would have made, but not one Wolfe had expected from the aristocratic creature who had been so perfectly coiffed and perfumed for her twentieth birthday ball.