Free Lord of the Wolves by S K McClafferty

better spent
gathering nuts and berries. It might not be substantial fare, but at least it
would be something.”
    “Nuts
and berries are not filling. Besides, you must learn to make yourself useful if
you’re going to survive on the frontier,” Kingston replied. “A lazy woman who
waits to be waited upon is a shame to herself and a blight upon her husband’s
name.”
    Sarah
gasped her outrage. “I am far from indolent!”
    “No?
What practical skills have you mastered, Madame, besides napping at a moment’s
notice?” The smiling wretch persisted. “Cooking over a campfire? Skinning game,
perhaps? Or making a deerskin as supple as butter so that it might cover your
husband’s nakedness without chafing his skin to blisters.”
    The
more he talked, the angrier Sarah became. A volatile temper was the one
shortcoming she had been unable to conquer, and it was becoming increasingly
clear that Kingston would not indulge her the least bit; indeed, for some
inexplicable reason, he brought out the worst in her. “Perhaps I cannot cook
over a campfire, or the other things you have mentioned, but in no way does
that diminish my worth! The skills which I possess are the sort required of a
gentlewoman. I play the spinet, and I am passing good at needlework.”
    “Needlework,
you say?” he said. “Then, you can stitch a wound together without leaving a
scar?”
    Sarah
sniffed. “It was my embroidery to which I was referring.”
    Kingston
snorted. “Fancy stitches on a pillow are of precious little use. I shouldn’t be
at all surprised if Brother Liebermann reconsiders his proposal of marriage and
takes a Delaware woman to wife, someone more adept at being a helpmate, someone
more willing to learn.” With that, he turned his broad back and sauntered
toward the creek.
    Fuming,
Sarah watched him go. How dare he insinuate that her betrothed would find her
so lacking that he would take another woman to wife! She was not devoid of
skills, inept! Why, with a little help, she could manage a home and be a worthy
wife, and she could learn to fish, if indeed she wanted to!
    Quite
suddenly, Sarah very much wanted to. Lifting her skirts, she hurried after him.
At the water’s edge, he paused, removing the belt that closed the front of his
hunting shirt, revealing a generous expanse of smooth, tawny skin.
    Sarah’s
eyes widened. “Why, what on earth are you doing?”
    “Preparing
to fish, Madame.” Slipping out of the shirt, he tossed the garment and belt
onto a flat rock. He was broad of shoulder and deep of chest, with skin like
flawless bronze satin. His movements were fluid, graceful. The corded muscles
of his shoulders and back rippled sinuously as he untied the leather thongs
which secured his leggings, and eased them down.
    Sarah
wondered what it would be like to touch his nearly naked form, to run her fingertips
along the thick muscles that joined his neck to his shoulder, and down across
his chest. To touch the warm silver bands that encircled his arms above his
biceps. Would her touch excite him, as watching him disrobe excited her? Would
he groan if she stroked the hard brown buds of his nipples?
    Biting
back an anguished groan at her own rampant thoughts, Sarah quickly, carefully
averted her gaze. Then, upon hearing a soft, indefinable sound, she risked a
second glance, covertly, from the cover of her lashes.
    Mesmerized
by the sight of so much naked skin, Sarah watched as he bent to remove his
moccasins, slid the leather casings down, inch by inch, and reached for the
leather thong that secured the soft strip of cloth that covered his loins—all
that stood between Sarah and total humiliation, yet to her vast relief, he only
readjusted the rawhide, then straightened and bent a look upon her. “You have
changed your mind, Madame?”
    Sarah
cleared her throat. “After some consideration, I have decided that I should
like to learn to fish. Yet, I wish you to understand that it is not because you
suggested