Dare to Love

by Jennifer Wilde

  He tightened his arms around my waist, holding me fast. I closed my eyes, giving way, too weary to argue, too weary to protest. Nick rested his cheek against mine.

  “I’m already a wealthy man, and I’m going to be a very important man, too. I’m selling the gambling halls. I have plans to get into politics. In a few years I might well be governor. I want you at my side, Elena. I want to make you First Lady of California.”

  He turned me around in his arms so that I was facing him, and I tilted my head back to look up into those sober brown eyes. His expression was serious. I could feel the power he exuded, but I sensed his ruthlessness as well. I had been aware of that from the first. A man would have to be ruthless to achieve what he had achieved, to reach the goals he planned to reach.

  “I love you, Elena,” he told me. “I know you loved Duke. I know you haven’t gotten over his death yet, but I think I can make you love me. I think I can make you happy.”

  His lips covered mine, and he kissed me for a long time, tenderly, carefully, deliberately holding back the urgent passion that possessed him. It was a chaste kiss, but only because he exercised the greatest control. As his mouth continued to caress and savor my own, I sensed that Nick Wayne would be a vigorous, masterful lover, and I was not immune to his physical attractions. I just wasn’t ready to succumb to them.

  He released me and looked into my eyes, looking for an answer. Finding none, he sighed heavily. “I won’t press you, Elena. I know you need time. I just want you to promise me you’ll consider my proposal.”

  “I’ll consider it, Nick.”

  “That’s enough—for now,” he said and smiled. “I intend to be very persuasive in days to come.”

  “No diamonds,” I said lightly.

  “No diamonds,” he promised, “but after you marry me, I’m going to cover you with jewels and you’d damn well better like it.”

  The smile played on his lips, his eyes fond and full of humor, and then he pulled me to him and kissed me again, wrapping his arms around me. The kiss was brief, breezy, affectionate, and I enjoyed it immensely. I liked Nick Wayne a great deal. Perhaps in time I would be able to love him.

  “I guess I’d better get you back to the hotel,” he said. “I’ve got to attend a committee meeting at three. We’re going to discuss a new sewage system.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Necessary,” he retorted.

  “I need to get back, too. I promised Millie I’d go shopping with her. She’s probably waiting.”

  He gripped my hand tightly and led me down the steep slope to the carriage, and I only stumbled once, catching my skirt on some spiky brush. Nick unfastened it, smiling broadly, clearly pleased with the way everything had gone. I felt very good myself as we drove back to the hotel. Today, for a while, I had been able to put my grief completely aside. Thanks to Nick I was beginning to feel better, to acknowledge that life must go on.

  When we reached the hotel, I placed my hand on his arm and could feel the hard muscle beneath the sleeve of his suede jacket as I kissed his cheek and said, “Thank you, Nick.”

  “I’ll see you tonight,” he informed me. “I’m going to take you to a Chinese restaurant.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s just a tumbledown shack with a triangular yellow silk flag hanging in front, but the food is sensational. Afterwards we’ll wander around the Chinese district. I might even buy you some firecrackers and a paper fan.”

  “I’d love that.”

  We said goodbye, and I went on up to my suite. I had barely finished freshening up when Millie arrived, looking lovely in a sky blue dress, her golden curls falling to her shoulders in the usual shiny cascade. She had hired a carriage to take us to Montgomery Street, and she was in an unusually serene mood as we rode along. There was a pensive look in her eyes; a few casual remarks took the place of her usual bright chatter. I could tell by her manner that she had something important to tell me, but she wasn’t ready to blurt it out. We spent a good two-and-a-half hours in the large, jumbled stores, leaving only because the driver had promised to pick us up at five-thirty.

  The boardwalk was piled high with crates and teeming with people, and it took some maneuvering to get to the corner where the driver had let us out. Millie clutched her parcels as we made our way through the congestion.

  “I don’t see our carriage,” I remarked.

  “He’ll be here,” Millie promised. “I gave him an enormous tip. Did you really like the dress I bought?”

  “It’s a lovely shimmery yellow, like sunlight. It looked marvelous on you. A perfect fit, too.”

  “It’s going to be my wedding dress,” she confided.

  “I rather suspected that.”

  “We’re going to be married next Tuesday. This morning James drove me out to his ranch. He’d just bought it. It’s small and neat and—well, James likes it. It has bunkhouses and barns and an adorable house, white frame. It cost a fortune.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re wondering how he could afford it,” she said wryly. “So did I. I thought he must have robbed a bank. He didn’t. He merely took it out of his account. Would you believe the scamp is loaded? When he came to California he was practically penniless, the blacksheep of the family. A very fine old southern family, I understand.”

  “I’m not terribly surprised,” I confessed.

  “Two years ago an uncle of his died—this uncle had been a blacksheep himself, and he was fond of his errant nephew—and he left James everything. Everything was almost a hundred thousand dollars! I was absolutely livid when James told me!”

  “Why should you be livid?”

  “To think he’s been living in a sordid boarding house, taking me to the cheapest restaurants. And me thinking he was a poor vagrant with nothing but his ability with a gun going for him. I imagined a future of dire struggle and beans five times a week. I thought I would have to raise chickens and save my egg money and—Do you know what he said when I asked him why he hadn’t told me about his landfall before? He said he wanted to make sure I was interested in him and not just his money!”

  “I imagine you set him straight.”

  “I almost broke off the engagement then and there! We had a terrible fight. Right in front of the bunkhouses. But … making up was divine. He kissed me and kissed me and kept on kissing me until I was too flustered to fight any more. I just wanted to purr. Lord, Elena, sometimes I think I must be the luckiest woman alive.”

  Our carriage came rumbling down the street then, wheels churning in the mud. Quickly, we climbed inside and a minute later we were on our way, the carriage rocking shakily as we started up the hill.

  “What about you?” she asked. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure, Millie.”

  “You can’t just stay on at the hotel. You could take another engagement.…”

  “I swore I would never dance again, and I meant it. Without Anthony it—it wouldn’t be right. I couldn’t. That part of my life is behind me.”

  “And the future?”

  I hesitated for a moment, gazing out the window at the shopfronts, not really seeing them, before I said, “Nick Wayne asked me to marry him today.”

  “I imagined he’d get around to it eventually. Are you going to accept his proposal?”

  “I should. He’s wealthy and prominent and—and he would take care of me. He plans to build a fine mansion on Fern Hill. He wants to be governor and have me his First Lady of California.”

  “I’ve no doubt he’d do just that. Nick Wayne generally gets what he wants.”

  “You don’t like him, do you?”

  “Not particularly,” she said carefully. “He’s a bit too smooth for my taste, a bit too calculating, but he’s been very good to you. I can’t fault him there. He’s the most eligible man in California, terribly attractive as well.”

  “I wish I loved him.”

  “Perhaps you will in time.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “You
—you’ve been very fortunate, Millie. I’m elated for you. Your dream has come true, but mine.… Well, mine was destroyed a long time ago. For years I refused to admit it. For years I held on to the shreds of my dream, hoping it would materialize again.”

  Millie took my hand. “I know,” she said quietly.

  There was a silence, and when I spoke again my voice held a steely undertone of resolve.

  “The last shreds have faded away,” I said, “and there’s nothing left to hold on to. The dream is gone, and I suppose I have to face reality now. If reality is Nick Wayne and a fine mansion and a future of security, I have to make the best of things.”

  “If you waited you might eventually meet someone else who—” Millie began.

  “I can’t afford to take that chance,” I told her. “Nick loves me. I may not love him, but he knows that. There’s no dishonesty involved. I’ll make him a wonderful wife. He won’t be sorry he married me. I’ll see that he isn’t.”

  Millie didn’t say anything, but I could tell she was disturbed by my tone of voice. At the hotel, Millie accompanied me to the door of my suite.

  “I’d better hurry. James is going to stop by for me early. We’re going out to celebrate—at another cheap restaurant, no doubt. To hell with him! I’m going to order the most expensive thing on the menu and insist on champagne.”

  “Nick is taking me to Chinatown.”

  “You’ll enjoy it. It’s ever so colorful. Have a good time, and, Elena—” She hesitated. “Whatever decision you make, I’m sure it will be the right one. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Inside, I stood for a moment in the sitting room, trying to fight the grief that swept over me whenever I was alone. It was an almost tangible thing, catching me unawares, tormenting me. After several very bad minutes, I managed to gain control. I pulled the bell cord and, when the maid appeared, ordered a bath. The hot bath helped, and later on, as I put up my hair and applied my make-up, I knew that I was going to be all right. I would never forget Anthony. I would never get over his death, but I could go on now. I had spent enough time in this dreadful limbo of loss and indecision.

  I was going to marry Nicholas Wayne.

  Nick was attractive and wealthy and sure of himself, and he did love me. I was certain of that. He would cherish me and protect me, and I would have a life of ease. There wasn’t an unattached woman in all California who wouldn’t leap at the chance to marry him. But why did I feel so ambivalent about it? Why did I keep thinking of an enchanted hacienda and strumming guitars and a man in black?

  I sighed and got up to dress, selecting a gown of rich burgundy taffeta. As I passed the door to the sitting room I thought I heard someone at the hall door. But I had locked the door as I came in. I decided I must have imagined the noise and gave it no more thought as I dressed. I would have to dress differently as Mrs. Nicholas Wayne, I reflected. The Elena Lopez wardrobe would be replaced by one equally as grand but considerably more subdued. It wouldn’t do for the future First Lady of California to display quite so much bosom and shoulder.

  When I finished dressing, I glanced out the window. There was a curious orange glow in the distance, soft-and hazy in the darkness. No doubt it was a bonfire at one of the construction sites at the foot of the hill. The accumulated rubbish had to be disposed of somehow. There seemed to be an unusual amount of noise in the distance as well, but San Francisco was always noisy.

  I walked into the sitting room, which had only one lamp lit, its circle of light casting the rest of the room in shadow. I lighted another lamp and turned to glance at the clock. I saw him then, and my heart seemed to stop beating.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.

  “You—” I whispered.

  “I told you we would meet again, Elena.”

  He spoke in that low, husky voice that was half whisper, half seductive caress. The black silk hood covered his head, but he wasn’t wearing the black outfit I remembered so well. Instead, he wore a dark blue suit and waistcoat of pale blue brocade. I realized he couldn’t have risked entering the hotel in his usual attire. He must have slipped the black hood over his head after picking the lock to enter my room.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said.

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “We have to talk, Elena.”

  “What—what is there to talk about.”

  “Your future.”

  As I stared at him, all the emotions I should have felt were curiously absent. I had thought of him so often, had been thinking of him only minutes before, even as he stood in the shadows, waiting for me to come into the room, and now that we were face to face I had a sense of unreality. I seemed to be standing far away, observing the two of us from a distance. Through the window behind him I saw the orange glow. It was much brighter than before. That didn’t seem real either.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” I said. “Someone might—my fiancé is due to arrive at any minute.”

  “Your fiancé?”

  “He mustn’t find you here. You must leave at once.”

  “You can’t marry Nick Wayne, Elena.”

  “How—how did you know his name?”

  “I know he’s been seeing you almost every day since Duke died, but I had no idea it had gone so far. I’ve kept you under very close observation, Elena.”

  “Have you?”

  “I’ve never been too far away. I should have come sooner, after your manager was murdered, but I only found out about that this afternoon. I knew he had been shot, of course, but I didn’t know it had been deliberate.”

  His words didn’t seem to register. I stared at him. His dark brown eyes were grim.

  “It was no accident, Elena. It was carefully planned. Those horsemen had been stationed down the street for over an hour, waiting for Duke to appear. They had been given specific instructions. They were to make a big ruckus, shoot out some windows, cause a lot of commotion and murder Anthony Duke.”

  I remembered how the horsemen had seemed to come out of nowhere, firing wildly, and I shook my head, refusing to believe it. The sense of unreality grew stronger. Black Hood stood there quietly in front of the window, watching me, and behind him I saw the orange glow blazing brightly, spreading, staining the sky. I could hear distant shouting. The hotel was filled with noise. None of it registered.

  “He planned it, Elena. He wanted you, and he believed he had to get rid of Duke before he could win you.”

  “No. No. Please.”

  “It’s true. One of the horsemen got drunk a couple of nights ago and began to talk about it. At first no one believed him, but word got back to me just the same and I came to San Francisco immediately to check.…”

  And then I remembered what he had said in his office that afternoon, when I told him how I had sold my jewelry to pay Anthony’s debts. He had said I must love Anthony very much to have done a thing like that. And I had said that I did. But he hadn’t understood what I meant. All he could see was that Anthony was serious competition that had to be eliminated … and that night Anthony had been shot in front of one of Nick’s gambling halls.

  Black Hood continued: “I told you once about the man who stole my mine, caused my partner to blow his brains out. That man was Nick Wayne, Elena.”

  “I was going to marry him,” I whispered.

  “I would never have allowed that, Mary Ellen.”

  The husky whisper disappeared and he spoke in his natural voice. I stared at him, unable to believe what I heard. Mary Ellen. He had called me Mary Ellen. I knew then. I think I had known from the first. Not consciously, perhaps, but my senses, my soul had told me what my mind had been unable to admit. In my heart, I had known, and now everything fell into place. It had been so right. It had been so beautiful. It had been like that first time on the moors, and now I understood all those feelings that had been so bewildering, that had haunted me for so many weeks.

  “It—it can’t be.”

  “Yes, Mary Ellen.”

  He reac
hed up and pulled the black hood from his head. Holding it for a moment, he looked down at the limp cloth in his hand, his dark eyes thoughtful and grave, and then he tossed it onto the carpet. He was still standing across the room, in front of the window. He looked up at me, and I examined that handsome face I knew so well, the stern jaw, the full pink mouth, the taut cheekbones with faint hollows beneath them, the jet black hair so rich and unruly.

  I stared at him, unable to speak. Brence was silent, too, gazing at me with cool self-possession, and in that moment of silence both of us became aware of the commotion in the hotel. It was louder than ever, and it seemed incredible that we had been so involved that we hadn’t paid any attention to it before. Excited shouts and the sound of heavy footsteps echoed down the hall. Brence frowned, puzzled, and I suddenly realized that the orange glow had completely filled the sky. In the window behind him, I could see flames and clouds of smoke.

  “Brence! Fire! It—it’s right outside!” He whirled around. What had been a hazy orange glow at the foot of the hill only a short while ago was now a raging, monstrous, crackling conflagration devouring everything in its path. The whole block was on fire, flames leaping, licking, dancing wildly in the wind, almost upon us. I could see the building at the corner burning, and the building next to the hotel was certain to be next. Smoke rose in the air like great black clouds. Even as we watched, the rooftop next door cought fire, rivers of flame rushing over the shingles, spreading. Not more than thirty seconds had passed since I first cried out.

  Brence turned to me, but before he could say anything the door burst open, and Nick charged into the room. His face was ashen, his cheek smudged, his eyes wide with alarm and concern. When he saw me standing beside the table, he gave a cry of relief.

  “Thank God! I had to fight my way up the stairs! You can’t believe the confusion down there! The street’s a mob scene! Fire spreading—hotel’s going to go up any minute!”