Savage Enchantment by Parris Afton Bonds Read Free Book Online

meet in a straight line above the high bridge of his nose. Damn it! Why should he be disappointed that she hadn't risen to his bait? What had he been expecting, anyway? Certainly not that distant aloofness following on the heels of her fiery outburst. He should never have agreed to hire her.
    No matter ... she'd be on her way with the arrival of the next tutor.

Chapter 7

    She could not help but be piqued by Simon Reyes's indifference to her. It was a great contrast to the young men who had courted her in Boston with whispered words of adoration and confessions that they would surely die of heartbreak should she not accept their proposals.
    Of course, Kathleen was shrewd enough to know that the courtships were not for herself alone. Her father's wealth and political power were added incentives. But that part of her life had ended the year before, with Edmund Woodsworth's formal request for her hand. And if she did not want Edmund to take possession of her as he lasciviously had her father, then she would have to consign herself to whatever way Simon Reyes chose to deal with her in the interim.
    Simon napped the rest of the afternoon, his arms crossed and his chin resting on his chest. But Kathleen found the journey too exciting, if not jolting, for sleep. El Camino Real was packed with travelers: couriers carrying mail; padres with pack mules, poking along beneath their burdens; heavy wooden-wheeled carretas carrying hides, "leather dollars," for illegal trade with foreign vessels.
    But by the time the sun, red like a hot coal, hovered just above the sea, and billious black clouds, foretelling of a seasonal storm, climbed steadily on the eastern horizon, Kathleen earnestly wished she could take back her retort about not sleeping in the same room with Simon -- and every other traveler wo elected to stay the night.
    Her stomach growled embarrassingly with hunger, and she ached between her shoulder blades and on the seat of her buttocks. The thought of a bed, even if it were the way station's customary tabletop, seemed more precious to her than water to a bedouin. Nothing could seem worse than the prospect of mounting a horse and riding throughout the long night.
    At last the coach rolled into the dusty pueblo of San Buenaventura, which was little more than a motley collection of mud-brick huts and the now-abandoned mission, its wooden-belled tower inhabited by a multitude of pigeons and swallows.
    Like an excited child, Kathleen leaned her head out the coach's window as the whip drew the team of six horses to a halt outside the small adobe rancho station. On either side of the rancho's splintered wooden door were hung lanterns, already lit against the rapidly descending darkness, their pools of light roaming over the hard-baked earth with each gust of wind.
    When the postillion opened the door, Kathleen turned to awaken Simon and found his steady gaze once more on her. Was he puzzled by her, or amused -- or something else? she wondered, turning away quickly to descend from the coach.
    Inside, the main room was hazy with smoke, and the only light came from two or three wax candles that sputtered in their wall fixtures. To one side a tin basin rested on a bench where the travelers could wash up. Eagerly Kathleen reached for the tallow soap in the side dish.
    "Careful," Simon warned, beside her. "The soap'll curl the hide off a buffalo."
    In spite of her tiredness, Kathleen smiled, unaware of the way the wide, gay smile subdued the sharp angles of her square jawline; or of the effect it had on others. "My skin feels like a buffalo's right now."
    However, she passed up the luxury of soap and settled for splashing her face and hands clean with the tepid water before drying them on a roller towel that had obviously seen better days.
    Finishing her toilet, Kathleen looked up to find Simon still standing within the doorway, his narrowed eyes sweeping the room, as if by habit; taking in everything revealing nothing. When a short