Whitney watched as Garner turned a crimson-faced stare on her. Dusky color flooded down his neck through his shoulders and chest; his turmoil apparently matched hers. Their eyes locked and held for a long moment before a movement nearby intruded.

"E-edgewater," Garner turned his head and stiffened. "Breakfast and baths now, please." Then he took Whitney by the wrist and ushered her back into her room, closing the door firmly on the butler's huff. The flashing autumn-fire of her eyes, the angry blush of her cheeks, the tangled fall of her silky hair... he had a devil of a time tearing his fingers from her arm now that they were alone... in the dimness of her room.

"Your family, I presume," she challenged, her chest heaving as she fought to control a tangle of pride and ire and one other feeling that lodged somewhere between protectiveness and indignation. She did manage to recognize that there wasn't quite so much of the vaunted Townsend pride in his confirmation.

"Yes." His jaws tightened as though he'd just tasted something very sour. "They're... quite surprised to find me home so soon... and..."

"And married," she finished when it became apparent he wouldn't.

"And married. Their reaction is not unexpected," he straightened defensively. "I shall make a suitable explanation to them later. Meanwhile," he waved a proprietary hand about him at the stylishly furnished chamber, "this is your room. Breakfast and bathe and make yourself presentable. I'll send for you later, when I'm ready to introduce you properly to my family."

He stood a moment longer, looking as though he might say something else, but stopped and turned on his bare heel and left. He was across the hall with two closed doors safely between them before he realized he had been on the verge of apologizing for his family's unforgivable behavior. Never in his life had he thought of Townsends as other than Townsends... and thus exempt from the mundane course of ordinary human interaction. And if they were curt, cutting, even profane to others, including each other, it had never seemed to matter in light of the weightier concerns that occupied them.

But now, for the first time, he had had an unnerving glimpse of his father, his grandfather, and his cousin from another perspective, through another's eyes. He'd had an odd feeling that was surprisingly like embarrassment at the arrogance they displayed toward someone they didn't even know... toward someone as exceptional as Whitney Daniels.

Across the hall, Whitney stood where he had left her, staring darkly at the carved panels of the huge mahogany door, with its polished brass fittings. "Bathe" he had said. "Make yourself presentable." How dare he-she pulled her shirt up vengefully and the mingled aromas of sweat and horses and woodsmoke wafted up. Oh. She dropped the fabric with a curl to her nose and a flame in her cheeks. Still, he might have asked in a more gentlemanly manner. She recalled his snarling father and cousin and grandfather and realized he might have also been a good bit less gentlemanly.

Townsends, she shuddered, ugh. The Iron Major apparently came from an Iron Family. It was only the prospect of facing them again that made her reconsider her rebellious urges and looked around the dimly lit room for evidence of a washstand and her small leather bag of clothes. She'd not allow them to look down their noses at her again. She took a deep breath and snatched up the "blue willow" pitcher from the washstand, wondering how a body got water in this big fancy place.

No, not just "fancy," she caught herself. "Exquisite" and "blue." Very blue... or maybe "royally" or "opulently" blue. That's what her aunt Kate would probably call such color, opulent. A sudden wave of longing for her home and for Kate and her pa swept over her, and she had to shake it off physically to make herself answer a knock at the door.

A middle aged serving woman, dressed in starched gray and white, stood just outside, balancing a linen-draped tray with one hand and reaching for the doorhandle with the other. Whitney fell back before her determined entry, and when the woman had deposited the tray on the table near the fire, she eyed the pitcher in Whitney's arms and went to pull back the heavy brocade drapes at the window and part the shutters to admit the cold morning sun.

"How would I... where do I get water?"

"It's coming, M'am." The woman slanted a look at her that said it couldn't arrive a minute too soon, bobbed, and withdrew.

Whitney watched her leave, then turned to stare at the large, high-ceilinged chamber, now bathed in morning light. The bed was huge and draped with glorious satin brocades, and a counterpane that was trimmed with gold cording. The furnishings were all polished mahogany, made in a spare, graceful style; a table and straight chairs, a highboy, a wardrobe, a marble-topped washstand, and a needleworked firescreen. A thick carpet, containing a dozen shades of blue, covered the polished maple floor before a hearth and mantel made of carved white marble.

This was Garner Townsend's opulent home. Whitney put the porcelain pitcher back on the washstand and went to investigate the delicious smells emanating from the linen-draped tray. Silver pots... two of them. And painted china and silver cutlery-like her aunt Kate's, only grander. She handled the cup gently, turning it over and over with reverent fingers, before filling it with coffee. Then she sipped and sighed and buttered a biscuit. At least he didn't intend to starve her.

By the time she finished, the little woman was back, ordering two fellows in to build up the fire and settle a huge, beaten copper tub before it. She informed Whitney she'd been "assigned" to help with her bath, and Whitney informed her pointedly that she was neither simple nor infirm, and needed no help. After a steely-eyed confrontation, Whitney resorted to a bit of bargaining and struck a deal; the woman could help wash her hair, then would have to leave her alone so she could bathe herself.

Soon, Whitney found herself with clean, rose-scented hair, soaking up to her neck in a steamy tub of water before a toasty fire. A whole tub of hot water... and scented soap. She wriggled her toes above the water's edge, wishing Aunt Kate were here. How she would enjoy this; she used to talk about such things with a certain wistfulness in her voice. Whitney now knew why. A body could come to relish this "bathing" business.

Half an hour later, the serving woman, who finally identified herself as "Mercy," returned and found her already dried and dressed in her other shirt and skirt... with deerskin breeches riding covertly beneath them. Mercy had brought a tortoiseshell brush and comb, and set about de-tangling her hair and pulling it up into ladylike braids looped on either side of her head in the current fashion. Whitney protested and fidgeted, but Mercy was adamant and finally had her way. And when Mercy handed her a hand glass so she could admire her new coif, Whitney gasped and her shoulders twitched and she chewed her lips to constrain her incredulity.

Mercy proudly announced that the style was fresh from the continent and "all the rave" amongst the ladies in Boston. Whitney nodded, red-faced, and Mercy withdrew, clearly miffed that her skills had gone unappreciated.

Whitney plopped onto the narrow bench at the foot of the bed, looking glass in hand, and shook her head in disbelief. It was bad enough she'd have to face his prickly family soon... but to do so looking like a flop-eared beagle! She'd never seen anything so absurd in her life! She propped the handle of the mirror between her knees and dismantled the hound's-ear braids. Mercy or no Mercy.

She brushed her hair and waited, then brushed her hair again. It was several hours later, and Whitney's hair was shining indeed, before Edgewater came to fetch her to the "morning room" and the family. Tension had coiled like a top-string inside Whitney as she smoothed her homespun skirt, resettled her belt, and followed the elegant butler. He led her through the broad upper hallway and down the sweeping staircase, and through a spacious, tiled entry hall. They passed polished mahogany doors, gleaming brass-and-crystal sconces, thick Turkish rugs, and paintings in gilded frames. Regal reds and lush sendal greens and winking brass formed an intimidating palette of elegance wherever she looked.

Down a paneled hallway, he indicated an open door with his hand, then withdrew, leaving her alone. Her heart was pounding and her hands were cold as she took the final steps toward the open door and heard their voices. It was a very un-Daniels bit of trepidation that caused her to pause. What she heard in that pause stopped her entirely.

"... forty percent of this house is mine," Garner was proclaiming in a deep and very angry voice, the kind of voice he often used with her. "And forty percent of Townsend Distilleries and forty percent of the shipping and mercantile interests. Forty percent. This is my home and my wife will live here with me, whether you countenance it or not."

"You'd inflict her on us?" came a female voice. The cousin, Whitney realized distractedly. "A nobody from nowhere... Good lord, Cousin Garner, she's lived amongst savages!"

"She's not a savage, she's my wife," Garner snapped. "She is unused to... eastern life, but she'll adjust."

"She looks like a charwoman, a scullion," the cousin intoned irritably. "All that hair-and my maid dresses better! I won't be seen with her, I won't!"

"She is dressed... appropriately for the frontier," Garner countered grimly. "Her appearance may be remedied by a simple outlay of coin."

"Which, no doubt, is exactly what she married you for, an outlay of coin," Byron Townsend charged in a voice very like Garner's, but with a harder, icier edge. "Well, she'll get nothing in this house-"

"Have to marry her, did you?" broke in a worn crackle of a voice that obviously belonged to Garner's grandfather. "Caught bedding the wench and forced to do right by her?"

There was a shocked silence from the room, during which Whitney's heart rose into her throat. It was a brutal, constricting summary of their union; caught bedding and forced to marry. Dishonor, set to rights. How small and tawdry it sounded. There was no room in it for the honest exchange of pleasure of their bedding, or for the days and nights of rigid control and denial that preceded that sweet lapse of honor.

"Dammit! I knew it!" Garner's father exploded. "Another damned disgrace! You haven't got the slightest speck of self control around women... no decency, no damnable honor at all! Madeline, leave the room."

"I will not! I have ten percent-"

"Let the girl stay, Byron," the old man said, a trace of lurid glee in his voice. "She's old enough to hear about the consequences of unbridled lust."

"It was not unbridled lust." Garner flamed guiltily.

"You went out there to fight honorably at Washington's side, to put down a treasonous rebellion, and ended up wallowing and rutting about in the muck with a crude little trollop instead of doing your duty. What else could it be called... disgusting, degraded animal lust."

Those steely, relentless words drove into Whitney like a spear. She was a "crude little trollop," who "wallowed and rutted" in "muck." And she dressed worse than a servant. She glared down at her thick, homespun skirt as though she could see it ablaze. It was all the worse for the fact that she hated the way she was dressed, too! On a vengejul impulse, she pulled at the ties of her skirt and pushed it contemptuously down over her hips to grind it underfoot. She ran her hands over her simple deerskin breeches and her boots and felt her Daniels pride flaming. How dare they?! She was a Daniels... and blessed proud of it!

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin and strode into the study to face the snarling, dangerous pride of Townsends... a Daniels walking straight into the lion's den.

All four were arguing; every one of them making heated declarations that nobody else was listening to. Garner caught sight of her, stopped just inside the doorway, her booted legs spread so that they stretched and tightened that memorable deerskin around her shapely hips and thighs. Her fists were planted at her waist, her thick hair tumbled and swirled around her like a wild river, and her green eyes snapped with sparks- like fires in a lush forest. She was bold and breathtaking as the frontier that had shaped her, and every bit as untamable. As Garner startled upright, staring at her, Byron stopped mid-diatribe and turned as well.

There was a strangled noise from Garner's lady-cousin and all fell churchyard-quiet. Whitney took one step farther in and spread her booted feet again, feeling four sets of burning eyes upon her, probing, questioning. She lifted her chin and thrust her shoulders back a bit farther, blissfully unaware that she thrust taut nipples hard against her shirt front in the process. Garner flinched with pure horror at the sight, but was strangely unable to drag his eyes from it.

"I understand introductions are in order," she lifted her chin a quarter of an inch more, to a hard-trading angle. She tossed a hot, expectant look at Garner in the deep silence, and when he didn't speak, she decided to introduce herself. "I'm Whitney Daniels, of the Westmoreland County Daniels's. And I'm here because I wedded the Iron Major, here, a fortnight ago, and he insisted I come."

"Well," Byron straightened and sputtered at her audacity, "I'll be damned."

"Very likely," Whitney was pleased to agree, "unless you learn to curb your profane tongue. The major, here, has a nasty habit of swearing... and it's plain to see how he came by it."

"Good God, Whitney-" Garner started for her, his face dark, his eyes silvering with ire. But she stepped quickly aside and he halted, unwilling to chase her about the room in front of his family. Dread was creeping up his spine at the familiar angle of her chin and the trader's glint in her eye.

"You must be his pa," she returned Byron's bald scrutiny tit for tat, letting her gaze drift pointedly down his elegant gray coat, his snowy-ruffled shirt front and his snugly-tailored breeches. Then she moved on to face the old gent in the wheeled chair, taking in white hair that matched his shirt ruffles, a sallow complexion, and uncanny gray eyes set in pockets of wrinkles. "And you're his grandpa."

"I'm Ezra Townsend, you upstart baggage!" the old gent snarled, glaring through narrowed eyes. "Nobody calls me 'grandpa.'"

Whitney leaned forward slightly with a glint in her eye. "I can certainly see why. And you," she turned to the diminutive young girl with the dark hair and flashing hazel eyes and pretty but petulant mouth, "must be his poor orphaned cousin... Madeline, I believe."

The girl took a step back with an outraged crinkle to her nose. "Good Lord, she's even dressed like a savage! Breeches... men's breeches!"

But every male eye in the room was already fixed on them, and on the curvy delights they enhanced more than hid.

"I am not a savage," Whitney whirled to face them with a determined Daniels glow to her face. "I was born in Allentown and raised in Westmoreland County. I'm a distiller, just like you. My pa and I make the best whiskey in all of western Pennsylvania." She saw them shifting astonished stares to Garner and declared half-truthfully, "And the major married me because of a bargain that was struck between us. An honest deal, pure and simple."

She met Garner's silvery gaze for a brief moment and realized the depth of the stubborn honor that lay behind it, an honor that would not let him break a bargain or a vow, even though the keeping of it would expose him to his Iron Family's outrage. And in that long, heated moment she felt a strange rush of warmth for him inside her.

"See here, wench," Byron Townsend stalked toward her, his face dusky and his eyes silvering the way Garner's often did, only without Garner's tantalizing heat. "You'll not get a thing out of my son, or out of my family. Not one penny, do you hear? Do you think we don't know you trapped him into this marriage? You're not the first to try it, you little Jezebel-" he grabbed her by the wrist, clamping down punishingly.

"Delilah," she rasped ominously, trying to free her hand, "not Jezebel."

Garner watched in raw horror as Whitney's eyes blazed and she wrestled her wrist higher, bringing Byron's hand up-God!-Garner realized-she was going to bite him! Oh damn-blood roared in his ears as he lunged for her-watching her lips part- He plowed into Whitney from the side, jostling her free and managing to wrap both arms securely around her waist from behind. Shock prevented her from struggling until they were a safe distance away, then she began to wriggle and struggle.

"Stop it, Whitney!" He bent a harsh command near her ear, tightening his arms furiously about her ribs. "Stop it-or I swear I'll-"

"Let me go-what's gotten into you?!" she fumed, trying to pry his banded arms from around her waist.

"Behave like a lady, dammit," he growled into the torrent of her hair.

But it was already too late. His family's astonishment bore in on them. Good Lord -this was exactly the kind of spectacle he'd feared-dreaded in the marrow of his bones! All possibility of passing her off as untutored but otherwise acceptable had just been obliterated. Now his imperious family had witnessed Whitney Daniels in full, harrowing glory and knew the excruciatingly embarrassing state of his marriage. "Stop it!" he gave her a shake. "Hold still!"

To everyone's surprise, especially Garner's, she did quiet, to slow, sinuous wriggles that drew Byron's and Ezra's hot eyes. Her face was crimson, her eyes flashed pure defiance as she writhed against Garner's body, and his volatile loins.

"This is my wife, Whitney Daniels Townsend," he held her quieting form against him, feeling his whole body focusing on the feel of her pressed against his highly reactive male parts. Oh God, not that-not now! His voice dropped to a deep, menacing growl. "She's my wife and this is forty-percent my house. She'll live here... with or without your blessing. And if you find you can't accept that, then be assured: I'll take my forty percent of the Townsend Companies and use it to give you one hell of a beating. Do I make myself perfectly clear?!"

Whitney wasn't sure if she imagined nods or if they really did it. But she had no chance to confirm or disprove her perceptions. Garner suddenly spun her around to seize her wrists.

"We'll return... after she has dressed for dinner." His face was a fierce bronzed mask, his eyes hurling silver lightning bolts as he demanded, "You will show her proper consideration, as she will give to you."

With that potent warning to both sides, he dragged Whitney from the room and through the main hall. When they reached the grand stairs, he overcame her deepening resistance by hauling her up onto his shoulder and carrying her to her room. By the time he dumped her onto her opulent blue bed, her brain was blood-soaked and only partly functional. But outrage at his bullying remained, and she struggled to sit up, squeezing her eyes shut to clear her vision. When she opened them again, his thighs were braced hard against the edge of the bed and his arms were crossed resolutely over his lace-layered chest.

"You were going to bite him," he charged, his nostrils flaring, a vein in his temple pulsing visibly. "And by damn, that will stop-here and now! This is Boston, dammit, not the bloody backwoods, and I'll not have you conducting yourself like a raging Hun!"

"Bite him?!" she went positively scarlet. "Bite your father?! What kind of savage do you take me for?"

Her question lay burning on the air between them, forcing each to confront harshly the mountain of obstacles that lay between them. He really did think she was an uncouth, ignorant wretch; the realization staggered her. And in the same moment he understood; his base expectations of her were no less objectionable than his family's.

"It was-" he twitched defensively and rubbed the hand she'd once bitten, "a reasonable expectation-in light of my own experience."

"You're..." she had to swallow hard to force her voice past the huge lump in her throat, "the only person I've bitten in years."

In the crowded silence, the sight of him braced and towering above her invaded her crumbling defenses. His wide shoulders were encased in fine black broadcloth, a creamy white, brocade waistcoat hugged his ribs, and his chest was filled with a frosty waterfall of ruffles. Solomon and Sheba, she moaned silently, he really is a fancy gentleman. Her gaze worked its way up the lacy expanse to his bronzed face and the heated glimmer of his light eyes. He suddenly seemed like a stranger. An elegant, demanding stranger.

"No biting," she managed. But it felt too much like surrender and she had to add, "If you'll stop cursing. I hate it when you curse. It's foul and profane and a gentleman who finished five years at a Royal Military College in England ought to be able to think of something to say besides 'Dammit.'"

"How do you know where I was educated?" he ground out. Around her he was lucky to be able to speak at all!

"I know a lot about you, Major."

He stiffened with raw alarm, trying desperately to rip his eyes from the taut wrinkles of deerskin that skimmed her belly-he wanted to dive toward the hot, tantalizing crevice between her sleek legs. His blood was draining, pooling precipitously in his excitable loins. Bargaining again, he realized, but his proper indignation was drowning in the phantom feel of her bottom pressed against him, as it had been minutes before, wriggling erotically against his manly parts.

"I'm not here to bargain, dammit," he took a giant step back.

"Just what are you here to do, Garner Townsend?"

She hadn't meant it to sound so seductive, hadn't meant to meet his eyes. And she didn't mean to flick her tongue over her top lip as she stared at the bold sweep of his velvety bottom lip.

Flames shot up the walls of his body and he trembled to contain them. His breath came hard as he visually traced the flare of her hips and sought the outline of the hard little buttons of her nipples through her shirt. He was hardening, aching... and forgetting what he'd come to do!

"Da-B-blessit!" he growled, making balled fists of his hands and squeezed them savagely, "I want those breeches-I don't want to ever see you in them again!"

"What?" she leaned back on weakened arms, scarcely able to hear through the battle-clash of impulses in her head. "My breeches?"

"And I want them now." He backed another step and jammed his fists onto his waist, spreading his shoulders formidibly. "This minute," he demanded in a deep, sensual rasp. "Take them off, and put decent skirts on. In Boston, ladies dress for dinner. And by d-thunder-you will, too."

"But-"

When she hesitated, he lunged at her, grabbed one of her legs, and pulled her boot off. She sputtered and protested, finding alarmingly little resistance to him in her desire-molten frame. When he reached for her other boot, she wriggled, but had to let him drag it from her.

"Well?" He halted, braced above her, his face glowing, his eyes hot with alloyed anger and need. Her parted swollen lips made no protest, but her green eyes lit with a deep emerald glint of fire. If he wanted her breeches, that look said, he'd have to take them from her himself. Against every bit of common sense he owned, he accepted her ultimatum and sent his own fingers to the horn buttons of her torturous breeches. His knuckles brushed the smooth deerskin, stretched across her sleek belly, and excitement vibrated up his arms to thunder through his chest.

He clamped his jaw until it ached and when the last button gave, his hands hovered hotly before seizing the top of her breeches and peeling them down her curvy hips. At first there was shirt... then pale, soft skin, sleek rounded curves... and a startling little patch of gingery curls in a neat little vee that hugged her woman's flesh. He froze, bending over her, staring at the warm curls, sensing, anticipating the sleek, tender flesh inside . . feeling its liquid heat pulling him...

He sprang up, quaking, unable to breathe for the desire squeezing his throat. She was looking at him with a dark, sweet invitation in her eyes and a promise of pleasure in lips swollen like cherries, succulent with anticipation. He was trembling, ravenous, roused. God, how he wanted her, ached to possess her. Once, twice, he'd loved her, burying himself inside her and losing some part of himself to her in the process. And twice he'd risen from her intoxicating loving into pure torment.

His fingers reached for her-he felt a lightning bolt arc through his hands as he touched her warm, satiny belly. He slid his fingers to the sides of her hips and down her firm, tensed thighs until he came to the crumpled deerskin about her knees. His fingers closed on the shameless, caressing garment and he paused on the razor's edge of eruption. A third time... he could lose himself forever. The third time he wouldn't be able to stop, to keep her in her place, to resist this madness for her that made him so vulnerable. She'd find some way to use it against him, to betray him when it became convenient... or necessary. Then it flashed into his mind... Delilah, she had said to his father, not Jezebel. She was Delilah ... to his Samson . . .

Whitney held her breath, watching desire flaming through him with a life of its own. His tender fingers were like trickles of molten silver along her heated skin and a familiar, burning ache was building in her woman-flesh and swirling through the core of her. She wanted to surge against those hands, to feel his weight pressing her down into the soft bed, to feel the strong rhythmic thrusts of his body inside hers, filling her. She wanted her woman's bargain with him... she wanted to love him and she wanted him to love her. And she held her breath, knowing he wanted her, praying he would open his arms.

Then his need-darkened eyes closed and his hands closed on her breeches and he gritted his teeth as he ripped them down her legs and over her feet. She gasped, squeezing her eyes shut, feeling as though he'd torn her very skin away. Shame and hurt rocked her and she bolted from the bed, her shirt and belt still in place, both shielding and revealing her bottom half. She pulled her shirt down angrily, and faced him with her hair swirling like a forbidding storm around her. He couldn't have made his rejection of her, his contempt for her, more plain. She forced her chin up to a stubborn Daniels angle and dared her eyes to fill with tears.

"You have what you wanted, Major. What are you going to do with them? I doubt they'll fit you." Her eyes dropped derisively to his breeches, and filled with confusion at the hard evidence of his desire.

He stood there with her breeches wadded into one hand, his chest heaving, his face seared with private pain. "I'm going to burn them. And you're going to wear skirts and act like a marginally civilized human being. I'll be back shortly to escort you to dinner and you'd better be in skirts." He stalked toward the door but turned back, his turmoil visible in every aspect of his frame. "And do something with that hair of yours."

Whitney watched as he slammed the door behind him. A moment later her legs melted beneath her and she scarcely made it to the bench at the end of the bed. She gulped air and gasped, feeling an ominous pricking in her eyes. Her hands curled into fists around wads of shirttail and she refused to give way to tears.

What was she doing here? He didn't really want her, he'd just made that perfectly clear. Despite what happened to his body whenever they were close, he apparently hated her too much to actually touch her again. And his Iron Family certainly didn't want her here. They were convinced she'd wedded-ensnared him-for his money and his social standing. And she didn't want to be here. She'd only come with him because she was supposed to "collect" on her marriage bargain. A living, a family, a good bit of manly ser- "Oh, Pa," she whispered through a choking in her throat. "How can I possibly make a proper bargain out of a marriage nobody wants?" Then the terrible truth of it struck her and she sagged, adding, "Nobody but me."

Some time later, Garner led a very subdued Whitney, garbed in her simple green woolen, down the grand stairs and through the gleaming center hall. Their footfalls echoed unnervingly on the hard walls and polished floors, auguring their coming encounter with the Iron Family. She glanced at the wrist Garner held in a viselike grip and lifted her chin another notch. She was a Daniels, she told herself, and Daniels's were canny enough to bluff their way through anything... including dinner at a fancy table.

As they approached a wide doorway, Garner paused to place the hand he held so tightly on his sleeve, releasing her reddened wrist. It was a concession to gentlemanly "appearances," she understood with painful clarity. And it was probably for "security" that he covered the slender hand on his sleeve with his own.

Byron, Ezra, and cousin Madeline lay in wait for them at the far end of a cavernous dining hall, and she felt Garner's hand tighten over hers. His restraining touch reached all the way to her embattled heart... he didn't trust her to behave in a civilized fashion. He didn't want her, didn't trust her. She raised her chin another notch to combat the sinking in her chest.

No taint of their earlier, ill-starred meeting was evident; politeness bordered on excess as Byron directed seating. Whitney dragged her eyes from their stylish clothes to covertly inspect the fastidiously laid table nearby. The sight of snowy linen, tall crystal goblets, and myriad pieces of gleaming silver cutlery by each plate caused a squeezing sensation in her stomach. After some confusion, she found herself seated across from Garner and beside Cousin Madeline, who slanted mistrustful looks at her and leaned pointedly in the other direction. When servants in dignified blue livery began to serve, hovering over them to add and remove dishes, Whitney had to call upon every bit of trader's acuity she possessed.

Food came in rounds: Cold relishes and soups, puddings... by the time the steamed fish arrived, the dinner began to take on a surprisingly predictable flow; serve, chop, eat, sip, lean back, and let them remove. Though foreign to her experience, she realized that elements of such grand feeding were oddly familiar. She was surprisingly at ease with the heavy cutlery and her own insights into what was happening. She began to hear Aunt Kate's voice in her head, recounting details of elegant ways and fancy parties in her former life as a paragon of Allentown femininity. Whitney felt their unstinting eyes upon her, scrutinizing her green dress, her simple plait of hair, and especially her manners. And she felt all the more empty inside for the debt she owed Aunt Kate, a debt she might never have the chance to repay.

"Well," Byron said, pushing back, fingering his tall wine goblet and leveling a stare at his son, "let us hear about your successes on the frontier. You must give us an accounting of your... adventures." He added a twist of a smile toward Whitney; too little, too late, to be construed as genuine warmth.

"Oh, yes, dooo," Madeline crooned coquettishly. "Did you earn many ribbons and medals?"

"Never mind that, how many of 'em did you kill?" Ezra cut straight to the gritty score of military confrontation- the tally of bodies. He leaned forward on his wheeled chair and flicked a watchful glance between Garner and his backwoods bride.