Colorado Dawn by Kaki Warner

viscountess. Or in returning to Scotland and being dumped in that drafty castle so he could go galloping off to Edinburgh or London on some pursuit that didn’t include her. Over the last two years, she had carved out a life without him—a fulfilling life—a fine, happy life, thank you very much—and she had no intention of giving it up.
    She sighed. “He can do it,” she told the dog still whining at the door. “Legally, he can force me to go back with him.” He could even beat her, or lock her in a mental hospital, or take control of her parents’ home and any money she made from her photographs. “So what am I to do?”
    The dog stretched up to bat at the door latch.
    “I know. I’m his chattel as surely as those two mules out there are mine. And he can make me do anything or live anywhere he wants.”
    Unless, of course, she did something to convince him that that would be a poor idea and she was not a suitable wife for a peer.
    Hmmm. Now there’s a thought.
    Leaning over, she lifted the edge of the curtain again. Now he was talking to Mr. Satterwhite, no doubt ordering the poor old man around like one of his troopers. With a sniff, she let the curtain fall.
    “It would have to be something that wouldn’t land me in jail,” she mused aloud. “Something that would bring harm to no one, especially myself, but would be so reprehensible he would gladly put me aside. Any ideas, pup?”
    Angus-the-dog squatted and puddled by the door.
    “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” she said, rising to clean the mess. “I’m not that desperate.” Not yet, anyway. But there must be something just as odious she could do to scare him off.
    Shadows lengthened as Maddie paced the tiny wagon, chewing her thumbnail, thoughts racing through her head. By the time Mr. Satterwhite knocked on the door to tell her dinner was ready, she had discarded a dozen ideas and had finally decided the whole notion was silly.
    But one thing was certain. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—go back to the sterile life she had worked so hard to leave behind.
    At a yapping sound, Ash looked up from Satterwhite’s recitation of the merits of the Winchester repeater over his British Snider-Enfield to see his wife peering out of the open door of her wagon with a wiggling ball of fur in her arms.
    “Will you please tie up your dog?” she called.
    “There’s no need,” he called back.
    “You’re certain?”
    “Aye.”
    Ash studied her as she came down the steps. His headache was almost completely gone now, allowing him to better see and admire the changes in his lady wife. She had lost none of her grace, he noted. She still moved with the regal glide that marked her a lady ofquality—back straight, head high, each step measured. She looked every bit the viscountess he needed her to be—except for the squirming, yapping rat she clutched in her arms.
    He stood as she approached.
    “You’re sure it will be safe?” She eyed Tricks warily. “I can’t keep my dog locked in the wagon forever. We’ve already suffered one indiscretion.”
    “You or the dog?”
    He thought he saw a smile before she pinched it off. He had missed that smile and the way it involved her whole face, and how it had made him feel when she’d directed it at him.
    After positioning her chair away from the smoke, he held it while she settled, then returned to his seat on the log beside Satterwhite, who was stirring a bubbling pot suspended over the coals. “If I tell Tricks to leave your wee dog alone,” he said, raising his voice over the constant yapping of the rat, “he will obey. As long as I’m not threatened.”
    “Like he obeyed your command to sit?”
    Satterwhite snickered. Ignoring him, Ash reached down to pat the wolfhound reclining beside his leg, his dark eyes fixed on the rat. “Tricks isna vicious. He will do as ordered.”
Unlike you,
he almost added.
    “In case he doesn’t,” Satterwhite offered, one eye looking hopefully toward the wagon, the other aimed