“For myself,” Serena said, her eyes dark, “I only gamble on a sure venture.”
“There’s no such thing,” Ward said, and lowered his mouth to hers. Their lips clung in devouring fury, a fierce forging of the bond of passion. They were locked together with bruising closeness, their caresses savage, in their ardor a haunting anguish flavored with desperation. His hands slid down her back to her hips, drawing her against him as if to imprint the feel of her upon his memory.
The couch was beside him. He put one knee on it, and with muscles taut, pulled her down with him upon its smooth, resilient width. He kicked off his boots, eased from his trousers, drew off the wisp of French silk left to her. Her hair cascaded in shimmering darkness over his arm, rippling over the edge of the brocade upholstery to touch the floor. Her lashes trembled on her cheeks, her lips were parted. His hands moved on her, arousing, inflaming, invading. His mouth ravished the nectar of her lips, searing her throat, her breasts, the flat white surface of her abdomen, until it seemed no part of her body remained untouched. Bronze and ivory, the contrasting shading of their skins blended as his body covered hers. They strained together, their breath locked in their chests, fused, glowing with heat, swept by trembling.
Serena felt feverish, caught in a maelstrom fueled by her own fervor, blinded by a blood-red haze of rage and ecstasy, torn by the need to relieve her inner pain by hurting him, and the burgeoning impulse to take him deep inside her. It was wrath and joy, a violent, rending delight that turned her blood to molten honey and lodged wild and suffocating horror in her mind. She was engulfed in the fire of delirium, yet within her there was the black and bitter iciness of unthawed winter. In the tumult of the assault upon her senses, she curled her fingers into claws, raking the ridged muscles of his back with her nails, while at the same time she felt the scalding seep of tears from under her lashes, tracking slowly into her hair.
19
Serena returned to the Eldorado the next day, and the next, and a dozen times thereafter in the following weeks. Ward was stern, imperious, insatiable. As she had thought, he knew Nathan was gone from home. He wanted her and he would brook no excuse, no refusal. A hundred times, Serena came near to putting his threat to the test; a hundred times she changed her mind. To stay away, she told herself, was not only to run an unnecessary risk, it would also be granting him a reprieve. Granted, his need of her was so great that it might be a form of torture to deny him; it was a more effective punishment to go into his arms with dutiful obedience to his commands while she remained outwardly unmoved. She was not always able to sustain such detachment. Her lapses were not harmful, however, serving only to demonstrate to Ward what rapture could have been his if he had not bartered her for gain, had not seen fit to coerce her.
She felt no guilt for what she was doing. Sometimes panic hovered at the outer edge of her mind when she thought of Nathan and his return, but she had no compunction about breaking the vows she had taken with him. They had been made under false pretenses, on false assumptions. Nathan had forced her to come to him as surely as Ward, though with more guile, less honesty. What loyalty did she owe him then, what fidelity?
It could not go on like this. The passion she found in Ward’s arms was tainted, unsatisfying to her, or to him. That it was also as addictive as the sticky residue of poppy flowers Pearlie smoked in her opium den was a fact she chose to ignore. Acknowledged or not, it flowed in her veins, this distilled essence of desire. It made her prone to the drift of daydreams, to a flushed and startled awareness of her own sensuality. It affected her with irritability when she was not with Ward, to a tingling feeling of exposed nerve endings. It assaulted her with sudden rushes of tenderness toward Sean, during which she would pick up her baby and hold him achingly close, pressing her face into the sweet curve of his neck, inhaling the fragrance of his small body. If anger and annoyance were close to the surface, so too was this strange exultation and a heedless inclination toward silent weeping. By contrast, when she was in Ward’s presence she schooled herself to present a cool and emotionless demeanor.
Her attention to her appearance was undertaken with much the same object. Like a rare and expensive jewel, such as one of the sapphires Nathan had given her, the life she presented was no more than a surface thing, the effect of reflected light on the hidden heart, artfully revealed, skillfully hidden.
Sometimes in the need to hide her emotions, to counterfeit her coolness, it was difficult to know what she really felt. She despised Ward for the subterfuge and hateful pettiness of what he was asking of her, and at the same time, was torn with compassion for the depth of his need. The love she felt for him was a constant pain made more aching by its betrayal. And yet it was also the source of the strength she drew on to continue, the base from which sprang her terrible sense of outrage.
It was on her third visit to the Eldorado that Serena came face to face with Pearlie. The woman was waiting for her as she emerged from the back door of the barroom. Swaying slightly, with her auburn hair straggling around her ravaged face, she stared at Serena with bleary venom.
“So you’re still in one piece,” Pearlie greeted her.
Serena paused to smooth on her gloves, her gaze wary. “It seems that way.”
“I wasn’t sure you would be. I’ve never seen Ward so mad as when he found out you had taken up with Nathan Benedict.”
“I’m sure you were careful to give him the most damaging version of how that came about you could think of,” Serena answered, her tone cold.
“I tried.” A malicious smile gleamed in Pearlie’s eyes.
“It did you no good as far as the Eldorado was concerned, I see. You appear to be persona non grata there again.”
The other woman looked away, her slack lips quivering before she pressed them tight. “Ward isn’t a forgiving man.”
“You tried to take over his property when you thought he was dead. What you didn’t keep, you sold out. I don’t see how you can expect anything else.”
“You were gone, married to your millionaire. Why couldn’t he have let things be, turned back to me?”
“I don’t think I need tell you the answer to that,” Serena said.
“Because of you?”
Serena stared at her, caught by the sneer in the red-haired woman’s voice. “I meant because of what you have done to him, both in the past and this last year.”
“That’s not it! It’s not! He’s obsessed with you. His meanness to me had nothing to do with the Eldorado; it was because I got rid of you. That’s why he threw me out, why he told me not to come near him. That’s why he hates me! It’s your fault, yours!”
There were flecks of spittle on Pearlie’s red lips, and a wild look in her dilated eyes. Her voice was shrill, rising to an uncontrolled shriek.
“You’re mad,” Serena breathed.
“Me? He’s the one who’s mad for wanting a cold little gold-digger like you. You’re the one who’s mad for coming back here, rutting with Ward like a bitch in heat, instead of playing up to your rich husband!”
The thought of Ward’s hearing the commotion, coming down to find her embroiled in a shouting match with Pearlie, filled Serena with repugnance. Thus far, she had managed to leave him each time with some few shreds of pride intact; she did not care to have it appear that she was engaging in a brawl over him now.
Taking a firm grip on the purse that dangled from her wrist, she brushed past the other woman. “What I do,” she said, her expression aloof, “is no concern of yours.”
“That’s what you think! We’ll just see about that, we’ll just see how hoity-toity you are when I tell your husband what you’ve been up to with Ward!”
Serena stopped. “You can’t do that.”
“Can’t I? Can’t I just? You wait and see what I can do. It wouldn’t surprise me if Nathan Benedict tried to kill Ward!”
“No, oh no,” Serena whispered.
“Yes, oh yes,” Pearlie mocked her. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’
d like having them fight over you like a pair of wolves? You’d be right there, ready to spread your legs for whoever won, no matter which! That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s what you really want!”
It was useless to exchange words with Pearlie. She was beyond reason. Serena picked up her skirts and, with head high and shoulders straight, walked away in the direction of the livery stable.
It was while she was waiting for her grays to be harnessed that she saw Pearlie once more. Her face twisted with a terrible look of grief and self-loathing, the woman stumbled down the incline from the parlor house, making for the weathered building where the opiate of forgetfulness was dispensed. She dragged herself up the steps and slumped against the door, beating on the closed panel with a weak fist. The door swung open, and, moaning, Pearlie fell inside.
Serena lay staring at the ceiling with one arm flung across the pillow above her head. Her eyes were wide and desolate, but dry. Her breathing was deep and uneven, threatening to dislodge the covers that lay across the swell of her bare breasts. Ward lounged beside her, one sinewy arm holding her against him. He shifted, reaching to pull the quilts higher against the chill of the room, tucking them in on either side of Serena. It was cold, enough so that their breaths fogged in the air in spite of the fire roaring in the stove in the next room, Beyond the windows, the sky was gray with the advance of the afternoon and the promise of snow.
Ward withdrew his arm beneath the covers once more, settling his hand at her waist, slowly caressing the smoothness of her skin with his palm. There was a reflective note in his voice when he spoke.
“You are a stubborn woman.”
Serena closed her eyes. “How so?”
“You were made for the sharing of love, but you hold it tight inside you. You give so much, and no more, refusing to fall until you are forced to it beyond the point of resistance. You cheat me of pleasure, yes, but don’t you know you also cheat yourself?”
“You have the use of my body, I come when you send for me. Isn’t that enough?”
“You come, but you aren’t here, not really. No, that is not, will never be, enough. Once I thought it would be, but no more.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Serena told him, knowing she lied. It made excellent sense, more than she had expected from him. She had thought that this time she would have no tears; she was wrong. They were only locked inside.
“Doesn’t it?” he queried. “A few times, before last summer, I came close to complete possession, close enough to be tantalized by the richness of the prospect. I won’t be satisfied until I have taken all you have to give.”
She turned her head, opening her eyes to stare at him. “What you want cannot be taken. It is given in return for trust, and in exchange for a gift of the same worth. You will have to be content with what you can gain by threats.”
“I can’t accept that.”
“Are you ready to renounce your bargain, then, since it doesn’t satisfy you?”
“That would make you happy, wouldn’t it?”
The tone of his voice was harsh, yet tentative. The sound sent a shaft of anguish through her. “Does it matter?”
“No,” he answered, and in the word there was the whisper of a sigh.
This was the first time they had talked of anything other than surface occurrences. Serena looked away from the shuttered darkness of his green eyes and the new lines etched in the mask of his features. “What I feel may not be the deciding factor.”
“Meaning?”
She sketched her exchange with his former partner in a few words, leading to the woman’s threat to inform Nathan of their meetings.
Ward gave a slow shake of his head, a gesture of pity.
“Yes,” Serena agreed. “Sometimes I feel sorry for her, too.”
“Don’t,” he advised. “Too much compassion is a trap. It becomes a burden, one that makes you convict yourself of some nameless guilt if you try to put it down.”
He was speaking of the past, and of his part in the destruction of Pearlie’s life. Compassion and guilt; wasn’t that an accurate description of what she felt for Nathan? Serena returned to the original topic.
“What are we going to do?”
“It bothers you that Nathan might find out?”
Serena swung to face him, a frown clouding her eyes. “Don’t you think it should? He is my husband, in spite of everything. He would have a perfect right to be upset.”
“Tell him I blackmailed you,” Ward recommended.
She levered herself up higher in the bed, a mistake, since his hand dropped lower, though she scarcely noticed at the time. “You don’t understand. It’s not me I’m worried about, it’s you. Nathan could kill you, and none would blame him.”
“Your concern is touching.”
“I’m glad you think so! Unfortunately, I don’t find the idea of having another man’s death on my conscience amusing!”
“Serena!” He pushed himself up in the bed beside her, resting against the ornate headboard. “You don’t really think Nathan would do anything so melodramatic, or that I would let him if he tried? If I know Nathan, he’s much more likely to look about him for some way to squeeze me out of business, and see that I am escorted out of Cripple.”
“Is that supposed to be a consolation?” she demanded.
“I thought it might be, considering it was the thought of my death, rather than my departure, that you claimed troubled you.”
Serena lowered her lashes, plucking at the sheet. “I’m not anxious to see you ruined for my sake either.”
“I would have expected you to see it as my just deserts.”
“No doubt it is,” she answered, her lips tightening.
“None whatever.”
The words were even. They almost sounded as if he meant them. When Serena slanted a glance at him, he was staring past her at the far wall. Suspended in surprise, she could think of nothing to say. In the distance there came a train whistle, the Midland on the trestle over Poverty Gulch, coming into town.
Ward’s hand moved over her thigh, then stopped. “When will Nathan be coming home?”
“I’m not sure. In a few days, I expect. He’s been gone longer now than he planned.”
“Has it occurred to you that even if Pearlie tells him, he may do nothing for the simple reason that he has no real right to accuse you?”
“You mean — because of Consuelo?”
“So you know about her, that Nathan is still involved with her?”
“I know.”
“Is that, by any chance, why you show so little remorse for making him the cuckold?”
His tone was detached, mildly curious. Serena refused to be lulled, however. “My feelings toward Nathan are no concern of yours.”
“Your feelings?” he said, his grip tightening on her upper thigh. “I’m not sure you have any, for anyone.”
“That isn’t true!” Serena objected, her pose of coldness forgotten.
He gave her a hard stare. “No, it isn’t, is it? There is your home for women, a grand gesture of charity, and an indication of how thoroughly captivated Nathan is, not that I blame him.”
“You don’t approve?” Somehow she had been certain he would. She had not forgotten Mrs. O’Hare and her descriptions, that day so long ago down in the Springs, of Ward’s kindness and generosity.
“It is something Cripple needed, something only a woman, or a church group, could have provided without misunderstanding.”
“Why do you sound so cynical, then?”
“I wonder how long it will last. For now, you remember the hardships you endured and you may offer genuine aid to women who find themselves in trouble. But how long will it be before you decide you were meant to be rich and respectable, that you would rather forget where you came from, sever all connection with the sordid past? How long will it be before your fine home is torn down to obliterate what it stands for, or else transformed into something more refined, a home for indigent gentlewomen, perhaps?
”
“If you think I will do that, you know nothing about me!”
“I know people. I’ve watched what money does to them. I’ve seen it happen too many times in the last few years. The men strike it rich, and for a while nothing changes, then the fact of great wealth begins to sink in. After they get their surfeit of worldly goods comes the realization that wealth is power, that it can buy a place among the highest. They crave that place. They move to the Springs, to Denver, to New York. They travel in Europe and look up their family trees. They import castles block by block, and fashion coronets for themselves. They have original coats of arms made up to paint on the sides of their carriages. They order champagne from France, caviar from Russia, oysters fresh from the coast, and turkeys from Tennessee—”
“I’m not like that,” Serena interrupted, strain threading her voice.
“No, but you will be. Nathan will want to show you off, and you will let him because it’s easier than refusing, and because there has to be something to do to fill the days.”
“Ward—”
“Come back to me, Serena. Bring Sean and come back to me.”
Serena had never expected him to make such a request. She had thought he did not care that she was married to Nathan so long as he could have her when he wished. To be proved wrong made her feel as if she had been duped, betrayed in a way that made all her calculations inaccurate, and threatened to crumble the foundations of her new existence before she had even begun to build upon it. He wanted her to come back to him, uproot her life once more, destroy the security of her child, return to Myers Avenue and the Eldorado, and in return he promised nothing, not love, not permanence, and not, no never, marriage. In spite of all that the longing to do as he asked was like a canker growing inside her, spreading its mind-numbing poison. The resulting confusion brought the glint of anger to her blue-gray eyes.
“Come back here?” she asked, her voice dangerously quiet. “Bring Sean and raise him over a saloon? Or maybe we wouldn’t stay that long. Then what? Maybe Sean could become a faro dealer, or a pitchman, or grow up to be a grubby miner’s apprentice with old eyes and a white face from never seeing the sun?”
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2 Page 124