The Awakening

by Jude Deveraux

  “I’ll send someone else, someone who couldn’t care less about Caulden’s pretty daughter, someone to whom it won’t matter that you throw your life away.”

  “How melodramatic you are,” she said, concealing her anger. “Tell me, how do you plan to ascertain the winner of this idiotic wager? Do you plan to hide behind the door and spy on us?”

  “I’ll trust your word for it. You have until 7:30 this evening to entice Taylor into some sort of primitive display or—”

  “Such as yours?” she interrupted.

  “Or you go to the dance with me,” he said, ignoring her.

  “You had better pack.”

  He gave her a smug smile. “I’m going into town to buy you a dress for tonight. I doubt if Driscoll’s bought you anything suitable for a night of tangoing.”

  She stepped out of the car. “I hope you know someone else who can wear it, because I won’t be needing it.” She shut the door and gave him a malicious smile. “It’s been interesting meeting you, Dr. Montgomery, not pleasant but interesting. I will meet you at 7:30 in the gazebo and I expect you to have your suitcase with you.” She turned on her heel and walked back to the house as the car drove away behind her.

  Amanda kept her courage all the way up the stairs and into her room, but when she shut the door behind her, every ounce of strength left her and she fell back against the door, her eyes closed. In the woods, alone with that awful man, she’d turned into another person—a swaggering, courageous young woman who wasn’t like the real Amanda at all.

  She looked around her sedate, tidy, colorless room and knew this was the real Amanda. She walked to the desk and picked up Taylor’s new schedule. She was already off course, and the moment she touched the paper, she felt Taylor’s power over her return.

  Heavily, she sat down on the chair. What in the world had she done? She was to entice Taylor? Make improper advances to Taylor? She’d rather walk across burning coals.

  But if she didn’t do it, she’d have to go to a dance. Of course she could always tell Dr. Montgomery she’d been joking. And he, being the civilized man he was, would no doubt throw her over his shoulder and carry her out the door. Then everything really would be over between her and Taylor.

  She put her elbows on her desk and buried her face in her hands. What awful thing had she ever done to deserve the curse of Dr. Montgomery? God gave the Egyptians the twelve plagues and to her He gave Dr. Montgomery. Job would have thrown in the towel if he’d had to deal with this man.

  She opened her eyes to look at the schedule again. She was late getting back with Dr. Montgomery, and right now she should be studying the current battle between the Greeks and the Bulgars so she could discuss it at dinner tonight with Taylor—if she was still alive at dinner. Taylor might kill her if she did what Dr. Montgomery had goaded her into trying.

  If only there was someone to talk to. How did one entice a man like Taylor? With Dr. Montgomery all one seemed to have to do was stand in one spot for a moment or two and he was enticed. Amanda’s mind drifted back to this afternoon. The warm air, the birds, the food, Dr. Montgomery’s lips and hands all seemed to be rolled into one long, delicious sensation.

  No! she told herself, stop those thoughts. Dr. Montgomery was an overbearing lower-class moron who wasn’t fit to clean Taylor’s boots. But he certainly did make her feel—

  Mother, she thought suddenly. Her mother would know what to do.

  Before Amanda could give herself time to consider what she was doing, she left her room, went down the hall and knocked on the door to the room where Grace Caulden practically lived.

  “Come in, Martha,” Grace called to whom she thought was the maid.

  Amanda opened the door and found that her heart was pounding as if she were doing something very wrong. Her mother sat at a little desk, her pen moving rapidly over a piece of paper, her back to Amanda. Amanda had, of course, seen her mother in the last few years but she’d always averted her eyes. Taylor could be rather harsh when he caught her talking to her mother.

  “It’s me,” Amanda whispered.

  Grace turned around in her chair, her eyes eating her daughter, but she didn’t move toward her. It wasn’t easy to suppress the urge to envelope Amanda in her arms.

  “Something has happened,” Grace said in a soft, carefully pronounced voice. She was as pretty as her daughter, with her dark hair and eyes, but there was no sadness in those eyes. For a woman who was nearly shunned by her own family, she looked remarkably happy.

  Amanda felt terribly guilty being in her mother’s room but at the same time it felt so good. She knew this confusion was Dr. Montgomery’s fault. “I need some advice,” Amanda said softly.

  Grace put down her pen and gave her full attention to her daughter. “I will do my best.”

  “I…I have done a very stupid thing.” Amanda looked down at her hands.

  Grace resisted the urge to say, Good! but just waited while Amanda stood there and fidgeted. Her awful, unstylish, boxy dress was stained and rumpled and her hair was a mess.

  “I made a wager,” Amanda said, and went on to explain as quickly as possible.

  When she finished, Grace’s mouth was open. “Dr. Montgomery is…” she trailed off.

  “He is an awful man! I wouldn’t consider this ridiculous wager except that if I win he’ll leave Kingman. Taylor has no idea what he’s like or he wouldn’t ask me to spend time with him.”

  Grace’s eyes brightened as she began to think quickly. “What you must do is win this wager. For the good of everyone on the ranch you must win. Now is not the time to think of yourself. You must throw yourself at Taylor and let nature take its course. I’m sure Taylor will understand—and respond. After all, he’s a normal, healthy man and you are a beautiful young woman. And it’s perfectly all right since you’re engaged to be married. I’ll bet Taylor has had to restrain himself from touching you. He’s merely being respectful.”

  “You don’t think Taylor will dislike me if I’m too…too forward? He doesn’t seem to like forward women.”

  “I told you, he respects you. Just show him you need a little less respect and a little more lovemaking and you’ll not only win your wager but you’ll probably get a marriage date set—and you’ll get rid of your dreadful Dr. Montgomery. What more could you ask?”

  Amanda smiled at her mother. “I guess you’re right. Thank you.” She turned to go, but Grace called to her.

  “Amanda,” she said softly. “What made you come to me?”

  “Dr. Montgomery asked me questions about you and I, well…I guess I…”

  “I understand. Go on now. You only have two and a half hours to win your bet.”

  Amanda smiled at her mother and left the room.

  Grace leaned back in her chair and rolled her eyes skyward. “Please God,” she prayed, “I need Your help. I don’t know how I’m ever going to get into heaven hating Taylor Driscoll the way I do.”

  She looked back at the room and smiled. If Amanda made advances to that cold fish he’d be horrified. This Dr. Montgomery was right: there was no passion in Taylor. Grace hoped Amanda flung herself on him and she hoped Taylor was disgusted enough to break the engagement, maybe disgusted enough to leave the ranch.

  “The bastard’d never do that,” Grace muttered. Taylor wanted the ranch so much he’d subjugate Amanda, banish Grace and make Harker think he couldn’t run the ranch without this stranger.

  Dr. Montgomery, Grace thought before returning to her writing, she’d have to pay some attention to that young man.

  Amanda stood looking in her closet. Two and a half hours, she thought, and she’d already wasted fifteen minutes trying to choose the right dress. She wasn’t used to choosing her own clothing since Taylor told her what she was to wear. She didn’t guess she could ask him what to wear for his own seduction.

  At last she grabbed a plain pink dress, since pink was the closest thing she had to red, and as she dressed she wondered what constituted winning this disgust
ing wager. A kiss on the lips, she thought. That’s all it would take. For a moment she paused and thought that if she reacted to Dr. Montgomery’s kisses with so much fervor, how in the world would she react to the kiss of the man she loved? Just thinking about it made goosebumps on her arms.

  When she was dressed, she made an unscheduled trip to the bathroom, then went downstairs in search of Taylor. The maid said he was in the library. Amanda paused before knocking and took a deep breath. She was doing this for the ranch, she reminded herself.

  At Taylor’s “Come in,” her hand was trembling on the latch as she slid the door back.

  Taylor looked up from the desk, obviously surprised to see her, then he looked down her body coolly. “I do not believe that is the dress I chose for you.”

  “There was an accident,” she answered glibly, as if she were used to lying. “At the museum a child fell against me with a piece of cake. Chocolate cake.”

  “Disgusting,” he said. “Children today have no manners.”

  Amanda took a breath. “Not like our children.”

  Taylor looked shocked at her words, and Amanda felt a little surge of power at having so much effect on him. “Why aren’t you studying?” he asked softly.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” she answered as she took a few steps closer to the desk. “I thought…” She hesitated. “I thought perhaps we could talk about our marriage plans.”

  Taylor took a while to recover. He didn’t like this one little bit. Amanda was not supposed to be in the library; she was not supposed to be wearing that dress; and she most certainly was not supposed to be talking to him about marriage and…and children! He had to stop this. If she started going where she wanted when she wanted, where would she go next—to road-houses? He stood.

  “Amanda, you are to—”

  “I’d like to talk about our marriage,” Amanda said quickly, cutting him off. She hid her shaking hands behind her back.

  Taylor walked around the desk and looked down his nose at her, his back rigid. “We will discuss our marriage when I say we will.”

  For the first time ever, Amanda felt anger at Taylor. It was that odious, interfering Dr. Montgomery, she thought. He was twisting her thoughts, making her doubt what she knew to be true. “I’m twenty-two years old, I’m a woman, not a little girl,” she said in the voice of a ten-year-old.

  “You are not acting like a responsible adult,” he said, his jaw hard. “You are acting like a demanding, whining, controlling shrew. You are not behaving like a woman who any man would want for a wife.”

  Amanda remembered her mother’s words: that Taylor was merely being respectful to her and that he was a normal, healthy man—and she also remembered her wager. Quickly, before she lost courage, she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips against Taylor’s.

  Nothing happened. Perhaps Dr. Montgomery’s barbarism was tainting her view of life, but every time she got within ten feet of him, his hands were on her body. But Taylor didn’t bend, didn’t respond, didn’t move. She opened her lips a little but still nothing happened.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him, saw him staring at her with rage. She pulled away from him. He was livid. His face was red, a vein pounded in his forehead—and Amanda was frightened. She remembered Dr. Montgomery’s words of, Do they beat you? She stood there paralyzed, looking up at him.

  It took Taylor a moment to recover enough to speak. He was really, truly horrified. The woman he had so carefully taught was turning into a harlot just like his mother. Were all women alike? Were women interested in only one thing?

  “Are you finished?” Taylor said at last, his voice cold enough to make his breath seem frosty. “Or perhaps you want more? Shall we copulate on the carpet? Is that what you’re after?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I…”

  “Have I misjudged you, Amanda? All these years I’ve thought you were different, that you were a woman worthy of love, a woman who had higher goals in life than merely procreation, and now I find that you’re no different. Tell me, have you always been lying to me? Have you ever been interested in learning?”

  “Of course I have,” she said, and she felt like a harlot. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Didn’t mean what?” he snapped. “Didn’t mean to act like a woman from the gutter? What kind of woman throws herself at a man?”

  “But we are engaged,” she said pleadingly. “Shouldn’t engaged couples show affection for one another?”

  “I haven’t shown you affection? You don’t think planning your lessons, the time we spend together, the hiring of Mrs. Gunston to take care of you isn’t a display of my affection?”

  “Of course it is,” she murmured. She had never felt so low in her life. How could she have been so crude? “I’m very sorry. It won’t happen again. I apologize.”

  “I find your apology difficult to believe. Perhaps I am not the man for you. Perhaps I should leave the ranch and—”

  Amanda’s head came up. He didn’t want the ranch more than he wanted her. She almost smiled. “No, please don’t leave. I’ll behave; you don’t have to worry. I’ll never do anything so…so brazen again. Please forgive me. I’ll go upstairs now and study all night with no dinner, and tomorrow I’ll make you proud of me.”

  “That will be difficult.”

  “I will, you’ll see,” Amanda said, backing toward the door. “This won’t happen again, I promise.” She slipped through the library door and ran up the stairs.

  Inside the library, Taylor sat down heavily and was horrified to find that he was shaking. He had almost lost everything: the ranch, Amanda, future security, everything. But something else that bothered him was that he hadn’t been the least bit tempted by Amanda’s kiss.

  He stood. That was perfectly proper. He shouldn’t think of her any other way except as his pupil until they were married. Even so, the whole episode had left him shaken. To come so close to losing the ranch and to see Amanda, the only female he’d ever come to trust, acting like a woman of the streets, had left him feeling as if the foundation had been knocked from under his feet.

  For the first time in his life, he went to J. Harker’s whiskey decanters and poured himself a two-finger-deep shot of whiskey, then downed it. He was sure his throat was burned raw, and his eyes teared as the hot liquid hit his stomach, but he felt better as he went back to the account books. Whatever had got into Amanda? Maybe she had too much free time. Maybe her lessons weren’t difficult enough and didn’t challenge her active mind sufficiently. He’d work on tightening her schedule and on giving her something to occupy her.

  Amanda tried to keep her composure but she couldn’t. Once inside her room, she flung herself on her bed and cried as if her life were over. She had almost made Taylor leave her.

  She beat her fists into the bed and kicked her heels. She hated, hated, hated Dr. Montgomery. He was ruining everything in her life. Why didn’t he go back to where he came from? Why didn’t he just leave her alone?

  She cried for nearly thirty minutes until a knock sounded on her door and she opened it to Mrs. Gunston. Amanda averted her eyes so the woman wouldn’t see that she’d been crying.

  “He sent this to you,” the big woman said, looking smug and pleased about something.

  Amanda took the book and paper and practically closed the door in the woman’s face.

  “Beginning Calculus,” she read aloud, then looked at the new schedule. She was to study this book and there would be a test on the first four chapters at six o’clock the next morning.

  “But tomorrow is Sunday,” she whispered, then her shoulders drooped as she flipped through the book. It looked awfully complicated, and if she was to do well she’d have to stay up all night. And she would do well! She’d make Taylor see she wasn’t frivolous, and wasn’t a wayward woman.

  She went to the desk and opened the book to page one.

  She was so engrossed in trying to understand the basic principles of calculus that she didn’t hear Hank enter her room t
hrough the window, so when he spoke, she jumped.

  “Lost the bet, did you?” Hank said from behind her.

  Amanda put her hand to her heart as she turned toward him. “Really, Dr. Montgomery, must you skulk about like a burglar? Couldn’t you come to the door and knock like an educated, mannered person? Or perhaps I’m asking too much. Maybe you grew up in a stable with the rest of the animals.”

  Hank grinned at her. “Turned you down so bad he made you snippy, didn’t he?”

  She gave him what she hoped was a look to kill. But he didn’t even so much as stop grinning. She turned back to her book.

  “Ready to go? I bought you a new dress. It’s supposed to be the latest thing for a young lady to tango the night away in.”

  She gritted her teeth and kept her face turned toward her book. “I’m afraid something has come up. I can’t go.” She waited for his explosion, but there was no sound from him for so long that she turned. He was sprawled on her bed, his long body taking up the whole bed. For just a second, he looked rather appealing, but she stopped that thought.

  “Well?” she said. She might as well get the argument over.

  “Well what?” He continued looking at the ceiling.

  He had more ways for angering a person than most people had hairs on their head. She stood, her fists clenched at her side. “Dr. Montgomery, I want you to leave my room and I never want you to enter it again. Also, I want you to stop interfering in my life. As for this afternoon, I was…well, I was not myself and I said things I didn’t mean. If you misunderstood and thought I meant to go to a dance with you I’m very sorry, but I have work to do and I cannot leave the house.”

  He just lay there, not saying a word, his hands behind his head.

  “I asked you to leave!”

  “What kind of work?” he asked at last.

  She sighed in exasperation. “If you must know, it’s Beginning Calculus and I have a test on it early tomorrow morning, so I have to use every minute to study.”

  He rolled off the bed and came to stand in front of her. “So you got punished, did you? A test early Sunday morning. What did you do? Wrestle him to the floor? Climb in the bathtub with him?”