Liz Ireland - Millie And The Fugitive

“I’m not budging an inch until I’ve had a bath,” she said to him before he could take so much as a step forward.

“A bath!” Sam exclaimed. “That’s impossible.”

“Why? There’s a stream not far from here, you said yesterday. You can’t possibly expect me to ride around the country dirty and smelling bad, can you?”

“Welcome to the unwashed masses, Miss Lively.”

Her chin jutted out defiantly, in a manner he was beginning to know and dread. “I am not the masses. Every day since I can remember, my maid, Alberta, has drawn me a warm bath. It’s not as if I’m asking for the moon. Just to wade in a cold stream. I wouldn’t think that too much to ask.”

“Well, it is,” he retorted.

“Hmm.” She tossed her mussed head of black hair behmd her to indicate her utter disdain. “My daddy always says cleanliness is next to godliness. I suppose that just shows what class of person you are!”

“Sorry, Princess, I don’t have time to be godly right at this moment.”

“Then you might as well shoot me now,” she argued petulantly, kicking off the striped wool saddle blanket. “I’d rather be dead than so dirty I’m attracting bugs!”

Sam could deal with bugs. An uppity rich girl with a powerful daddy bothered him a whole lot more. Yesterday he’d never have dreamed that taking the woman would make him feel as if he were traveling across Texas with a lit stick of dynamite, but that’s how it seemed now.

Why hadn’t he seen the signs? Her soft tan boots that looked like they’d barely ever touched dirt, her prissy sidesaddle, the fine yellow dress that even in its simplicity was better than any of the dresses the womenfolk of his acquaintance had ever worn — those things all shouted mockingly at him now. Even in the darkness he could make out that damn yellow dress.

So, probably, could any person who saw them, even from a half mile away. Damn!

Sam bit back a ragged sigh. No use worrying about things he couldn’t do anything about. Unless...

An idea occurred to him. A wicked idea, tailor-made to give the haughty little princess a cold douse of reality. Maybe next time she would think twice before she started making demands.

“All right,” he said, with a reluctance he now didn’t feel, “I suppose we could stop long enough for you to take a quick dip.” He leaned down and untied her bonds, then reached quickly for his rifle, in case she had any sneaky ideas.

Apparently she didn’t. Her smile of satisfaction showed through the darkness as she stood up and dusted herself off. “Now that’s more like it!” she said, her voice a pleased chirp. “I won’t be but a minute.”

“I’ll see to that. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

Her eyes became round and alert. “What? Surely you don’t think...”

“Surely you don’t think I’m going to let you swim away from me,” he told her. “You just start walking to the creek.”

She took one look at the barrel of his gun, turned, and began marching stiffly ahead of him. Funny, now that she knew she was going to have a witness to her morning bath—someone besides her maid Alberta—the woman seemed in less of a hurry to spiff herself up.

As the soft bubbling of the creek came into earshot, Millie’s steps slowed to a crawl. Finally she stopped, and turned, a genial smile on her face. “Sam...” Her voice was far too pleasant to be trustworthy, and her manner was all flounce and flutter, now that she knew he had her over a barrel. “That’s such a nice name.”

“Thanks.”

She nodded obligingly. “Sam, now that I’ve had time to give the matter further thought, I do believe I could wait another day, or perhaps even a week or so, before I take a bath.”

He smiled back. “I’ve given it some thought, too,” he told her. “And I’ve decided I wouldn’t want to be responsible for depriving you of your daily dose of godliness.”

“Oh, but I don’t mind, honestly.”

He shot his eyebrows upward, feigning shock. “What would your daddy say if he found out?”

Her black eyes grew fiery as all pretense of friendliness was dropped. “He’d rather that than that I stripped down in front of a criminal!”

“Don’t worry,” he said, smiling broadly. “I won’t look.”

She clucked skeptically. “As if I would trust your word—the word of a murderer!”

The tag stung. Would he ever be able to prove to the world that he and his brother weren’t criminals? Obviously not, if Miss Millicent Lively had her way. “Just remember, Princess. This murderer will be nearby in case you decide to swim away. Now walk.”

She tossed him a glare and marched forward again until they reached the edge of a stream. It wasn’t very wide, but there was a spot where it formed a very small pond—big enough for Millie to splash around in. Sam nudged her toward it, then nodded.

“Take off your dress and hop in,” he instructed.

After sending him an annoyed glance, she squinted down at the water at her feet. “This water is brown,” she declared distastefully. “And there are probably snakes in there!”

“Just jump in. Most likely, you’ll scare them all away,” Sam said, growing impatient. “Now take off that dress and get in.”

Knowing she had no choice—not with a gun pointed at her—she untied and slipped off her pinafore, then began to hurriedly undo the multitude of tiny pearl buttons down her front. There were enough of those to make Sam worry that Ed and Toby would catch up with them before they could all be unbuttoned. Finally, however, Millie was able to step out of the yellow frock, and Sam prepared to turn away.

Only, to his surprise, he discovered there was no need. Stripped down to her underwear, Millie had on more clothes than most women wore to church.

Her face flushed under his prolonged stare. “You said you wouldn’t look!”

Sam was still in shock. “You put on all that gear just to pick a few pears?”

Her jaw dropped in astonishment. “Of course!” She looked down her front. Over a corset she wore a thin short-sleeved cotton camisole that gathered at her narrow waist, and under the corset there appeared to be a sleeveless shift. And that wasn’t even counting the petticoats, which had to number three, at least.

Sam’s expectations had by necessity been drawn from the women he’d seen undress in the past—but those women had been from a different class altogether from Millie Lively. He’d forgotten that the richer you were, the more uncomfortable you had a right to be.

“You’d better set aside one of those petticoats to dry yourself off with.”

She complied, grumbling all the while. “All right. But I’m not going to so much as wade in that filthy muck. You can’t make me.”

“I don’t care if you only wet your toes. You were the one who was all fired up to get clean.”

He wasn’t surprised to see that shedding a petticoat barely made a dent in her layers of skirts. He picked up her yellow dress and watched as she untied and stepped out of her boots, then reached out with one small, pale foot to test the water. It was still too dark for her to trust that there wasn’t a snake nearby, so she took a tentative step forward — and, with a loud splash, was suddenly swallowed up by the pond.

“Millie!” Sam hollered, running to the edge of the bank. With all those clothes on, the poor girl was apt to sink like a stone! He looked anxiously at the wildly rippling surface, preparing to strip down to his long underwear and rescue her.

But before he could so much as tug at a shirttail, Millie surfaced again, coughing and sputtering.

“Are you all right?” he asked, still ready to dive in and save her. “Can you swim?”

Her shoulders poked above the water, and through the darkness she sent him a withering look as she coughed up the last of the water she’d swallowed. “I don’t have to swim,” she said. “I can stand.”

“Thank heavens,” Sam said, relieved. Remembering the dress, and the work he had to do, he turned away.

“I’m so touched that you care,” Millie’s voice said bitingly. “And it’s such a relief that you didn’t have to go to the trouble of getting wet just to fish me out.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Sam agreed, smiling as he heard more splashing and sputtering behind him. He spread the yellow dress out across the bank and began to walk across it in a shambling shuffle.

The girl released a strangled cry. “What are you doing!”

“Mussing your dress. It’s too clean.”

“Too clean?” she exclaimed. “It’s never been so filthy!” He bent down and flipped the dress onto its other side, and Millie groaned in dismay as he repeated the process. “Until now...”

“This way we’ll be a better match,” Sam told her.

“Just what I’ve always dreamed of,” she said scathingly, “to look like I belong to the criminal class.”

Sam finished with a little jig before stepping off the dress. “There,” he said with satisfaction as he inspected the now dingier garment. “You won’t attract as much attention now. It’s hard to tell whether this is yellow or beige, I’ll wager.”

When his commentary was met with silence, Sam turned quickly. But Millie hadn’t disappeared—she was standing very still in the water, her expression pained. And angry. Very, very angry.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

Her mouth clamped shut. Then she mumbled, “Nothing.”

“You can come out now,” he told her, holding out a hand. “Here, I’ll help you.”

“Don’t you dare touch me!” she cried ferociously. “You, you — dress-musser!”

Sam smiled. “You wound me.” Kneeling at the very edge of the bank, he grabbed her by the arms and lifted her bodily out of the water and onto dry land. Millie managed to get him at least half as wet as she was in the process.

He handed her the dress, which did nothing to soothe her. She looked at the garment in seething silence. “I loved this dress,” she said at last.

Sam shrugged. “It’s just clothing.”

“That’s all you know!” she retorted, her eyes flashing. “That dress was my very favorite. I sewed it myself — it took me months!”

Months? Sam wasn’t sure about these things, but he doubted it took most women months to finish a dress. Especially women like Millie Lively, who had all the leisure the world had to offer.

But maybe he just didn’t know what he was talking about. Needle and thread were tedious tools he’d always tried his damnedest to avoid using. “I suppose being called a dress-musser is better than being called a murderer.”

“You are a murderer,” she said, scrambling away from him up the bank as fast as she could. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten those two deputies!” She began drying herself with the petticoat she’d put aside. “I’ll bet hundreds of people are going to be combing the area for you today.”

“We’ll be ahead of them.”

“Not for long. Word of my disappearance will get out, and then you’ll be in big trouble.”

Sam found it difficult to concentrate on the prospect of being hunted at the moment. Instead, his eyes kept glancing in amazement at Millie, whose shape was silhouetted against the lightening sky. The girl might appear to be mere skin and bone while buried under her mounds of clothes, but when those same clothes were wet and clingy, the womanly curves they revealed were definitely...eye-catching.

He remembered, back at the pear tree, thinking the legs poking out from it were mighty appealing. But that had been before he was faced with the spoiled princess that went with them. Most of the time she seemed more girl than woman. It would be hard to think of her that way now....