Mystic Mountains

smoothed one away as it trickled from a corner.
    "And the only ones who 'll stop to watch me will be laughing at the fool who thinks to dance with a lame foot!"
    " Stop that," he scolded. "One thing I can't abide is self-pity. You've more gumption than that."
    She sighed, allowing him to lead her again.
    "Tell me about your mother and father," he asked after a small silence when all that could be heard was the shuffling of their feet.
    She smiled pensively. "Papa used to watch Ma at times as if he couldn 't quite believe his luck. Every man of class would have wanted to dance with her if she'd been a lady of quality. That English swine should have made her his wife." Tiger felt her go stiff with remembered resentment.
    "And if he had you 'd never have known your stepfather. 'Tis likely the English gent would have ill-treated her and left her to rot in his great mansion while he dallied with his mistress or any maid who took his fancy. Men like that never change."
    "Yes. No doubt you know all about the type."
    "I know as much about them as any other poor boy who had to live by his wits."
    "Did you live in London afore you were transported?" 
    "Aye. I was born in Kent. But my mother died at my birth, so Dad upped and took me to London." He gave a mirthless laugh. "He was going to make his fortune. 'Twas him who taught me to cheat at the gaming table afore I was this high." He gestured with a palm at his thigh. "I guess he taught me how to fend for myself, which put me in good stead for when I was sent out here as a green lad with no sense and no trade." Staring over her shoulder Tiger looked down long-forgotten pathways to the past.
    "What was it like when you came here?"
    He smiled down at her. "Well now, in those days men and women were packed together like so much useless cargo on the ships. It would take a while to tell of the horrors I saw. One man was lost overboard. Some fool went below and left a candle burning. It set a bag of rice to smoldering and the smoke sent everybody scuttling around like hens with their heads cut off. All except us poor fools locked below. If I live to be ninety, Bella, I'll never forget what it felt like to be chained below with fire threatening to set the ship ablaze." He swallowed, closing his eyes.
    " We arrived to a colony little better than a hellhole. Flogging was common."
    "Were you ever flogged?" she asked in a whisper. The thought of his beautiful body being so ill-used made her feel faint.
    "Not me, but many were. Some got up to five hundred lashes for stealing and others went about in leg irons for months on end. We English who were transported divided into two groups. I was a yokel and we would always be fighting with the townies who thought we had no more sense than sheep. The Irish set themselves up into three groups. They had the Cork Boys, Dublin Boys, and the North Boys." He grinned. "They all rushed into a fight until no one was sure who was fighting who."
    "How did you get the name Tiger? It can 't be the name you was baptized with."
    "Aye, you 're right. Captain Tate, who's a very good friend of mine, he gave me that title." He smiled reminiscently. "I was a tow-haired brat with this tangled mane flying about halfway down my back. He pulled me out of a spot of bother one day and reckoned I looked like a wild cat, and I guess I was in those days. The name stuck."
    "What 's your real name then? The one you were given at your birth?"
    For a while he looked down at her, his eyes narrowed and speculative. " 'Tis Timothy. But don't you go telling anybody. 'Tis so long since I was called it that if anyone was to call it now I would never answer."
    "I won 't tell a soul."
    They' d long since stopped dancing, and with a shock Isabella realized Tiger was leaning back relaxed against the table edge. And she was between his knees, held gently by his hands on her hips. She looked up and caught a strange glint in his eyes.
    "I 'd best get to my bed, then," she said, knowing it was the last thing she wanted to do. It felt so good, so safe, yet so exciting to be this near him. It was as if they'd stood thus a thousand times; as if her slender body was made to be surrounded by his strength.
    His eyes met hers, and he bent his head until his mouth hovered above her own. The warmth of his breath sent tingles over her skin. But then he seemed to come to a decision and with an abrupt movement almost lifted her off her feet as he put her away from him.
    "Aye, off to your bed, and no