Page 7 of The Last Warrior

“I saw how you looked there,” said the female heap who had landed at his feet. Her voice was surprisingly beautiful.

Black Lion, however, was not so easily impressed, since it was still a female voice. He looked passively at the woman and uttered, “I am sorry,” then he groaned a little as he gave her a closer look.

The woman had raised her eyes, and they were the deepest, most clear blue eyes he had ever seen, and Little Blue Eyes, as he immediately dubbed her, stared back at him. Unwillingly, he found he was not immune to her charm.

“You rolled your eyes at me,” she complained indignantly.

“Forgive me. I am late for my performance. I hurry when I should perhaps tarry.” He heaved a deep sigh then turned to leave.

“This is all you have to say? I get no more apology than a quick, ‘forgive me’? Will you at least help me up?”

Black Lion frowned. Lovely though this young woman might be, he couldn’t help but compare her to the well-brought-up Lakota women with whom he was acquainted. No polite Lakota woman would dare to use a voice on him which, for all that it was pretty, was filled with antagonism. Indeed, in the country of the Lakota, it was considered the height of bad manners to speak to a man with anything but a pleasant demeanor. “Where I come from,” he vocalized, “women speak softly and pleasingly. And they do not contradict a man.”

Perhaps he should have kept the observation to himself, however. She scoffed at him. “I beg your pardon. Do you, an American Indian, seek to lecture me on manners? You, who have not even offered your hand to help me out of this mud? Where were you raised? With wolves?”

He stepped toward her. Obviously, he did not understand what a white man was required to do. “Forgive me. I am not from here. I do not know your customs.”

“Pray, is it really so difficult to understand? Look at me.”

He did, which was part of the problem. She was enchanting…as well as… There was an aura about her that pulled at him.

At the moment, she was a mass of dark hair and sky-blue material, except where she had rolled in the mud, of course. It occurred to him that she wanted him to help her up, a request no Lakota woman would ever expect or need. For it was a man’s job to protect and to provide, and a Lakota woman knew this. She would never interfere with a man or with his work.

But here in this England, Black Lion was out of his element. With one more apology, he bent over the young lady, and, as though she were as lightweight as the headdress he wore, he picked her up.

She was rounded and soft, he noted at once, and she was probably the most shapely young woman he had ever had the good fortune to hold in his arms.

However, this embarrassed him. In his country, men and women who were not married did not touch. Rarely did they even speak.

As he grasped her tiny waist, his fingers tingled at the contact. For a moment, he yearned to hold her closer, to breathe in her sweet scent.

He quickly set her on her feet. “Sorry,” he repeated, and turned away.

Apparently white women here were more than a little different than Lakota women. “That’s it? This is all? You have nothing more to say? You knock me down like some colonial gun-barreling, Wild West gunslinger. You ruin my dress and my umbrella. And all you have to say is ‘sorry’?”

Spinning back toward her, he spared the delicate creature a glance, but even though it was fast, the look was thorough. Long dark-brown hair that cascaded into ringlets over her shoulders; creamy, pale, pinkish complexion; blue eyes that were made bluer by the color of her clothes. In truth, she was more than beautiful. She was…exquisite.

He said, “I am late.”

“Yes?”

“I have to…hurry.” Was she comely but not very smart?

“Look at me. You have ruined my dress.” She held out a muddy piece of the material as evidence. “You slung me into the mud, and then turned away without helping me up.”

“I helped you up.”

“After I complained.”

“I still helped you up.”

She sighed impatiently. “This is not the point.”

Black Lion realized he probably appeared stupid, but he could only gape at her. She wanted something else? Wasn’t it enough that they had touched, that he was speaking to her when there was no chaperone here to thwart him? Did she not fear for her reputation?

He was not left long to wonder, however, for she continued, “Perhaps you do not understand. I will have to pay to have the dress washed and pressed tomorrow.” She blew out a breath. “And that’s tomorrow, what about today? How am I supposed to endure the rest of the day with all this guck on me? And look here, my jacket is torn too.” She put a hand to her head. “Where’s my hat?”

For a moment, Black Lion felt as guilty as a wayward boy. Once, long ago, one of the women from the tribe had scolded him in much the same manner. It had been so demeaning an experience that it had never happened again. He had ensured it.