Capture the Sun (Cheyenne Series) by Shirl Henke Read Free Book Online

trying to discern some cause for the bitterness she sensed in his cold, logical proposition. “Have you never loved anyone?’’ She couldn't seem to stop herself as she whispered the question.
           Noah looked exasperated for a second. Then he paused briefly and considered. “Never the romantic dribble you're thinking of. When a man spends a lifetime on the frontier building an empire to bequeath to his descendants, he is forced to give up some things. All the people I cared for died long ago. I'm too old to begin again. Don't ask that.”
           Sadly, she looked at his piercing blue eyes and harsh expression. “I'll have to accept your terms in other words. But if—if we have children, they'd need a father's love. She let her words trail off, uncertain and embarrassed to be discussing such a personal thing, recalling the night they had just shared.
           “I shall do my best to be a dutiful father, Carrie. But first, you shall have to be a fruitful wife, won't you?”
           Something in his tone of voice was even more lewd than the veiled suggestion about her fertility. She felt patronized and cheapened beyond measure. Her temper, repressed for years in Patience's house, flared now. “How dare you! I'm not some piece of livestock—a...a horse!”
           Noah was out of patience and determined to quickly bring this romantic fencing of hers to an abrupt end. “Ah, yes, my dear, you are precisely that—a brood mare—to be well ridden!”
           Carrie blanched, both appalled at his crudity and devastated by his cruelty. She could not meet his eyes. Gripping her coffee cup securely in both hands, she raised it to her mouth and took a steadying gulp of its scalding strength. So, she would be his ornament and his brood mare, the two “duties of a lady.” How foolish she had been to quest for love.
     
     

 
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
     
           After the humiliating setdown from Noah that morning, Carrie confined herself to their cabin for the duration of. the day. Noah demanded a command performance for dinner at the captain's table that evening. Her withdrawn, spiritless demeanor when he came to their stateroom made him furious, as did her simple light-blue muslin gown with the sprigged embroidery around its high collar.
           “Take off that washed out, fluffy, little girl's dress and wear something with class.” He ran his long fingers rapidly across her gowns, hanging neatly in their narrow wardrobe by the bedside, and produced a brilliant turquoise silk. It had long, tapered sleeves and was cut very low in front, with sparkling jet beads trimming the bustline, waist, and skirt. The dress was so daring and sophisticated that Carrie had decided not to buy it, but a clever saleswoman must have seen the same potential Noah did, for she had convinced Carrie it was perfect for her.
           With his eyes boring into her trembling body, she stripped off the simple blue and donned the turquoise. When her fingers fumbled nervously with the buttons, he perfunctorily turned her around and efficiently fastened them up the back. She endured his ministrations silently.
           “I will not present a sullen, spoiled child as my wife at the captain's table tonight. You will act like a refined, gracious woman.” He finished the buttoning and turned her around, holding her shoulders in his hands, willing her to face him.
           His fingers felt like claws, she thought in revulsion as she forced herself to look at his face and acknowledge his command with a nod. The tenor of their relationship for the duration of the trip seemed set from that moment on.
           Noah had not exaggerated the length or arduous nature of the journey. The comforts of the steamer were soon forsaken for a brief overnight stay in St. Paul, Minnesota, the end of the Diamond Jo Line's run upriver. Carrie spent a lonely day sitting in a plush silk chair by the window of