Hermione Steele
In 1854, after Peter Hartley loses the love of his life to an arranged marriage, he vows to never allow his heart to be broken again, and plans never to marry. He decides to leave the family home in Virginia and head west. On his way, he rescues a young girl from a cliff. He never forgets her beautiful dark eyes and raven hair. Over the next few years, while he is making his fortune, he occasionally thinks of the girl, and wonders if she has grown up to be as beautiful as he anticipated.
Rain Cloud Lonehawk never forgets the handsome young man who rescued her from the cliff, and often wonders where he is. As she grows up she compares the young men she meets to the handsome stranger, none ever measures up. But it is of no consequence, she is convinced that no respectable gentleman will ever want to marry a half Cheyenne girl with an unfortunate past, so she sets her sights on becoming a schoolteacher.
However, when a seventeen-year-old Rain Cloud is put on the auction block by a misguided old man she has befriended and is about to be sold to a filthy brute, the plans of both Peter and Rain Cloud go completely awry.
Hermione Steele was born and raised in West Yorkshire, England. She lived in London for five years while working as a dancer. Upon her marriage, she moved to the U. S. and has lived in many areas of the country, but mostly in the Maryland/Virginia area. She had several occupations before receiving a degree in Information Systems Management and beginning a career as a programmer, working her way up to project manager. Her first book Around Her Little Finger, published in 2004, tells the story of Natalie and Adam, the Duke and Duchess of Lonsworth. Hermione now lives in Southern California.
Outside Carson City, Utah Territory, April 1860
Rain Cloud stood with her hands tied behind her back, on the makeshift platform - a trunk containing her clothing – and watch with growing dread, as one by one the collection of dirty, disreputable men gathered by the corral ceased bidding on her. The auction had lasted only a few minutes, but they had been the longest minutes of her life. For in that short space of time her emotions had gone from exasperation, to anger, to terror, and everything in between.
More than once she had asked herself, “How did I manage to get into this fix?”
It was a rhetorical question; she knew full well how she’d managed it. She hadn’t taken Mr. Taylor’s hare-brained scheme seriously. But then why would she have taken it seriously? The poor old man hadn’t made a lick of sense since his wife died the previous fall. Then again, there had been that clue; his scheme had invariably included a visit to the bathhouse. If she had just had her wits about her this afternoon, when he suggested such a visit, she would have been more on her guard, and he would not have managed to tie her up. Of course, he hadn’t mentioned his scheme in several weeks, and having shaken her head sadly and laughed about it in the first place, it had completely slipped her mind.
The three of them, Herman and Lydia Taylor and herself, Rain Cloud Lonehawk, had only been three weeks into their journey from Placerville, California to the couple’s son in Ohio, when the not unexpected death occurred, and the two had begun the return journey. Not being able to traverse the Sierra Nevada until the spring, he had begged to head to Virginia City, to the newly opened silver mines. She had agreed to his request, more to keep the old man she liked, and felt sorry for, quiet than anything else. But not only was he too old to undertake the hard work silver mining entailed, he hadn’t even tried. He wasn’t a miner anyway, he was a cabinet-maker, and an excellent one at that, or so she had gathered during the brief time she had spent looking after Mrs. Taylor during her illness. However, after his wife’s death he’d been unable to settle to doing anything, his mind had seemingly snapped and he’d done nothing but sit in his rocker, mutter, and weep.
It had been a very difficult winter. She had been obliged to find work in order to make ends meet and to prevent spending the money they had brought with them. Had she not done so she was afraid they would have run out of money before the snows melted and they could return to Placerville.
This was the reason for his cockeyed idea; he thought his money had run out. Rain Cloud had placed it all in a bank for safekeeping, but no amount of explaining could make him understand this. He had wept copiously, frantic with worry that he would never be able to return to Ohio. The only way he saw of achieving his goal was to sell her as wife to the highest bidder. It would solve two problems, he said, he would have enough money for his journey and she would have a husband. He had assured her that the man who bought her would marry her the same day and everything would be just fine.
It wouldn’t have been ‘just fine’ for Rain Cloud, but since she hadn’t taken a word he’d said seriously, she hadn’t worried about it. To begin with she’d been sure the auction would never take place, she didn’t believe he had enough smarts about him to follow through on his addled notion of posting bills advertising the event. And even if he did, no one would come. But now, looking at the group of thirty or so less than appealing men in front of her, she was beginning to realize just how wrong she’d been, and the fear she had been trying to keep in check rose to the surface.
He was standing there at the side of the trunk, hammer in hand, chuckling with glee. The latest bid was apparently far higher than he had expected. Anger now replaced fright as she heard him describe her as, “This beautiful, half-breed virgin.” She felt a strong urge to kick the old fool where it hurt the most.
Her emotions now switched to humiliation, not so much from the old man’s words, but from the ribald comments coming from the men who were asking how he knew she was a virgin, and offering various ideas as to how he had checked her chastity. Though chastity wasn’t included in the words being used.
Adding to her mortification was her hair. It was tumbling in waves around her shoulders. Normally, she was proud of her thick, black, shiny hair, considering it her best feature, but at this moment she rather wished it was lank, devoid of curl and dull in appearance. She had ceased tossing her head in order to keep her hair from falling across her face, because each toss had been greeted by cheers and whistles from the men, and requests for her to do it again. In addition, many of the men were making obscene remarks about her feminine curves, she was very well aware that, even though she was quite slender, she was very well endowed in that area.
The main problem, and the reason for the rising panic she was trying to subdue, was that the snake on her right, who had made the highest bid, was the biggest, filthiest, ugliest brute Rain Cloud had ever set eyes on. He certainly did not look the kind of man who would see the auction as a big mistake, not pay Mr. Taylor, and be agreeable to allowing them to go on their way. Grimly she decided that if he did have the final bid, and tried to take her virginity that night, he was going to wake up dead in the morning.
It was no good, panic engulfed her, feelings of dread clawed at her stomach; she fought back a sob. She was convinced the big brute would have the final bid and there would be no reasoning with him. The horrible comments he had been making left no doubt in her mind on that score. She knew she must keep her head if she was to find a means of escape, but she was finding this more and more difficult to do.
Bitterly, she remembered the last words her mother had spoken before she died, “Better days are coming, Rain my love, better days are coming.” Well, that had been three years ago when she had been fourteen, but she had yet to see those better days. Now it seemed as though she never would.
She sent prayers heavenward as she felt tears of horror and anguish sting her eyes. It was all she could do to remain standing.
The crowd had grown strangely quiet; as she had feared the man on her right had made the last bid. She closed her eyes to fight back the tears, but then opened them again and saw the hammer begin its descent. Her prayers were not going to be answered. Her life was over, all her dreams of the future, of going to finishing school with Susan, of becoming a teacher, would never be fulfilled. Oh! How had it all come down to this?
