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She turned slow eyes up at Lieutenant Hudson, whose grip was still heavy on her shoulder. “Unhand me this minute,” she said, in her voice a low hiss of a threat.
“You ain’t going anywhere,” Lieutenant Hudson said. “Finish your breakfast, then I’ll escort you to your cabin.”
“What you are doing is wrong,” Flame said, glaring from one soldier to the other. “The government isn’t paying you to babysit the colonel’s daughter. If you don’t let me go and allow me to do as I wish, I will turn both your names into the authorities.
I will make sure the President realizes that you are in cahoots with my father to start a war in the Minnesota Territory.”
She smiled slyly from one to the other when she saw a quick concern leap into their eyes.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lieutenant Green said, his eyes narrowing.
“I’ll make sure the President—you know, the President of the United States—won’t believe a word you say,” Flame said, laughing haughtily. “Now I’d suggest you both be on your way and forget you had anything to do with keeping me hostage on this boat, or else. . . .”
Lieutenant Green rose from the table and went to her. He placed a solid grip on Flame’s upper right arm. “Come with me,” he said, almost bodily lifting her from the chair with the hand clasped to arm. “I don’t take much to threats, especially from a lady.” He sighed. “And I’m damn tired of being the one chosen always to be your escort. I’m in the army to serve my country, not . . . not Colonel Russell.”
“Well, then don’t,” Flame said. “Let me go. It’s as easy as that.”
She flinched when his fingers tightened on her shoulder as he forced her to walk ahead of him. Flame looked around her to see if anyone on board might be looking at her, who might listen to reason and help her.
But the only ones aboard the ship on this early morning voyage to St. Louis were more soldiers. Some sat with wives. Some sat alone. But none of them paid attention to her, for it seemed that all of them had been warned about this colonel’s daughter who was too feisty for her own good, and because of her behavior, was on her way to a convent.
Feeling helpless, Flame walked dispiritedly from the dining room. When she stepped out into the fresh air of early morning, and the wind whipped the skirt of her dress up past her ankles, she realized that both lieutenants were taking advantage of seeing the silken taper of her legs, their eyes showing their interest—their lusty thoughts.
For a moment Flame thought she might take advantage of their obvious hunger for a woman and offer herself to them, and take flight from the boat while their breeches were down.
But she was afraid of their brute force and feared that once they got stirred up sexually, they might go ahead and force her to do what she had not planned to carry through with to the end.
No, she thought sullenly to herself. She wouldn’t take that approach. There was too much danger in that.
She gazed at the land passing by on either side of the boat. She mentally measured how far the boat was from both shorelines. It was no farther than the length of water she had swum many times in St. Louis. Although her father had always warned her of the undercurrent in the Mississippi River, she and her friends had gone swimming frequently downriver from the family mansion. She had never felt threatened by any undercurrents.
She stared down at the river as the soldiers led her toward her private cabin. She was not familiar with this stretch and how the undercurrents might be, yet she knew that she had no choice but to take her chances in it. She would risk her very life if it meant saving White Fire!
She looked at Lieutenant Green, and then at Lieutenant Hudson. Both of them were now holding her by an arm. Then she again stared at the water.
She gave two hard yanks and managed to get free from the soldiers.
Lifting the hem of her dress into her arms, she broke into a mad run toward the railing of the boat.
Just as she reached it and tried to scramble over the side, her breath was taken away when Lieutenant Green grabbed her around the waist and stopped her.
For a moment things went black inside her head.
Then her vision cleared and she realized that Lieutenant Green had grabbed her in his arms and was now carrying her hurriedly toward her cabin.
When the other soldier opened the door and stepped aside, her heart sank, for she knew now that they would lock her inside.
She felt trapped. Trapped! Surely White Fire would soon die!
Chapter 27
All I imagined musing lonely,
When dreaming ’neath the greenwood tree,
Seeming to fancy visions only.
—John Clare
