ildren, yes, but the mingling of his de Marion blood with the
nondescript Greenglove line could hardly produce the children he wanted.
Nancy, on the other hand, from an old New England family that probably
went back to even better English stock, was just the sort of woman he
wanted to breed with.

"Clarissa and I have never stood up before a priest or a minister, Miss
Hale. I've just been passing my time with her until the right lady came
along."

Her gaze was cool and level. "As far as I'm concerned you're as good as
married, and you have no right to be talking to me this way."

"Necessity makes your bedfellows out here on the frontier."

"Not mine." She shook her head, blond braids swinging. He could picture
all that honey-gold hair spread out on a pillow, and he felt a pulse
beat in his throat.

Nancy went on, "You must know how wrong it is for you to speak to me
this way. Otherwise you wouldn't have ambushed me out here."

"I've waited days for a chance to speak to you in private."

Josiah Hode, Hodge Hode's boy, had ridden fast to the trading post this
morning to tell Raoul that Miss Hale was driving her buggy into town and
was traveling, for once, without her father. It was the news Raoul had
been hoping for ever since the governor's proclamation had arrived in
Victor. Knowing Miss Nancy was indignant over his treatment of the
mongrel, Raoul had delayed approaching her. Now he could delay no
longer.

"I leave with the militia next Monday," he said. "That gives you three
days to think it over. I hope to carry your favorable answer with me
when I ride off to defend you from the savages."

She smiled, but the smile was without humor or warmth. "Carry this
answer with you if you wish: No." She flicked the reins, and her dappled
gray horse speeded up to a trot.

Raoul spurred his own horse to keep pace with her. "Take time to
consider."

"The answer will always be no."

White-hot anger exploded within him. His fists clenched on Banner's
reins.

"You'll end up an old maid schoolmarm!" he shouted. "You'll never know
what it is to have a man between your legs."

Her face went white. He had hurt her, and that made him feel better.

He kicked his heels hard into Banner's sides and the stallion uttered an
angry whicker and broke into a gallop, leaving Nancy Hale and her buggy
enveloped in dust.

He wished the country around here weren't so damned open. If he could
have dragged her out of that buggy and i