When the Splendor Falls

by Laurie McBain

  One day, when the dove knew she was dying, she found the passage through the sun, and she flew home, to the dancing grasses and the singing silver waters, where the guardian trees stood tall.

  Neil knelt down beside the slender cross.

  Shannon Malveen, She-With-Eyes-Of-The-Captured-Sky had come home.

  Twenty-four

  In a land of sand and ruin and gold

  There shone one woman, and none but she.

  Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Standing in her stockinged feet, a smooth length of silken calf showing beneath the lacy, beribboned hem of her pantalettes, Leigh drew a deep breath, her waist becoming even smaller as she sucked it in beneath her ribs. “Hurry, Jolie, I can’t hold it much longer,” she said, beginning to feel faint as Jolie pulled the laces of the corset tighter, the front of the boned silk curving just beneath her breasts and lifting them upward, the pink-areolaed crests teasing the lace of her chemise.

  “Don’t know why you have to have it so tight all of a sudden. Figured you were goin’ to stop wearin’ one all together, along with your drawers, so forgetful of being ladylike had we become, ’course, we also got so skinny we didn’t need a corset. But I’ve had this laced for twenty inches for the last five months, an’ you’ve never complained before, an’ why you want it smaller now I don’t know,” Jolie said, grimacing as she tried to hold the laces taut and tie them tight. “Goin’ to break my ol’ stiff fingers in two, honey child,” she complained, wondering what had gotten into Miss Leigh. Then she remembered the tight lacings on Miss Beatrice Amelia’s corsets, and close to thirty years after being courted, and, later, on Miss Althea’s corsets, especially after giving birth to her first child, and she smiled knowingly.

  “What are you smiling about?” Leigh asked suspiciously, catching sight of Jolie’s smug grin as she looked up from straightening the lacy trim on her chemise, the silver hand mirror reflecting Jolie’s coppery face.

  “Hmmmm, just remembering, honey, just rememberin’. There’s nothin’ Jolie forgets ’bout,” Jolie said, for Travers women were that proud when it came to their menfolk.

  “Hmmmph, don’t understand Mister Neil leavin’ yesterday mornin’ an’ not comin’ back last night,” she said, shaking her head in puzzlement. “You know where he went off to, honey?”

  Leigh’s jaw tightened slightly as she gritted her teeth. “No.”

  Jolie sniffed. “You didn’t say something sharp-tongued to him, did you?”

  “No.”

  “I know you, missy, you got a lot of your mama in you, ’ceptin’ when it comes to common sense, then you’ve too much of your papa in you.”

  If Leigh could have drawn in her breath in indignation, she would have.

  “No. I said nothing to him.”

  “Hmmmph! That’s probably the problem. You’ve got to sweet-talk him.”

  “I didn’t have time to say anything, he left so abruptly. And I’m not going to sweet-talk Neil Braedon,” Leigh told a crestfallen Jolie. He’d laugh in my face, she thought privately.

  “Well, you better be mindin’ your tongue then, honey, ’cause a man doesn’t like a sour-faced, vinegar-tongued woman ’round him. An’ I’ve never seen such crazy goings-on in the rest of this household. Reckon everybody’s actin’ addlepated. Miss Camilla hasn’t come out of her room since yesterday mornin’. Mister Gil’s got the fattest lip I ever seen an’ his nose is twice as big, an’ that sure wasn’t a little scratch on his arm. An’ I thought those misses were goin’ to have vapors when they saw him, jabberin’ ’bout that Oncle Gilbear of theirs who was chopped up into so many lil’ pieces. An’ I swear that poor Mister Gil turned pea green when they said that. An’ then there’s Miss Lys Helene, who’s not talkin’ more than two words at a time to Mister Guy, an’ Mister Nathaniel’s hardly said even two words, an’ they were hardly more than a growl. An’ I don’t like the way Mister Guy’s been actin’ lately, real sneaky, like when he was a boy an’ didn’t want me to find out ’bout somethin’ bad he’d done, an’ Miss Althea sashayin’ over to that shed to teach readin’ and writin’. Not proper. An’ that lil’ Mister Steward needs a hickory stick taken to that chubby bottom of his, throwin’ all those tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants, an’ Miss Noelle never smiles, an’ she was such a sweet lil’ thing, an’ that Steban diggin’ in the dirt like some bumpkin. I’ve never seen such goings-on.”

  “Tighter, Jolie, please. I can still breathe too easily,” Leigh said abruptly, not wishing to think about what was going on—especially the goings-on she was partly responsible for—as she began to brush her hair, the heavy length looking like bronzed silk as it cascaded over one shoulder to fall past her hips.

  “Well, you’re goin’ to have to stand stiller than you are, missy! Don’t want me to lace your hair into this, do you?” Jolie said, frowning as Leigh bent slightly sideways, reaching out for the sapphire-blue perfume bottle on her dresser top. Removing the gold stopper, she dabbed the heady fragrance behind her ears and through several long strands of hair, then at the base of her throat and on the blue-veined pulse points of her wrists, before reaching back and dabbing a drop behind Jolie’s ear, much to Jolie’s mock displeasure.

  “Scented soft skin and silken hair, satin and lace and lavender,” an amused voice commented from the door.

  At the sound of Neil’s voice, Leigh spun around in surprise, jerking the laces from Jolie’s hand.

  “Now, honey, look what you’ve gone an’ done. I’m never goin’ to get them so tight again.”

  “Allow me,” Neil said lazily, straightening from where he’d been leaning casually against the doorjamb, his arm raised along the partly opened door, his tall body blocking any view prying eyes might have had into the room as he’d stood admiring his wife en déshabillé. His feet in their soft-soled moccasins made no sound as he walked across the room with his catlike tread.

  “I don’t think that will be—” Leigh began, only to be interrupted by Jolie.

  “Nice an’ tight now, Mister Neil,” a traitorous Jolie told him, handing over the laces rather too precipitously for Leigh’s peace of mind, especially when she felt the laces being pulled tight with such ease.

  “If you don’t mind?” he said softly, his hand gently forcing her head down so he could see what he was doing as he stood close behind her.

  Leigh shivered slightly, then felt his hands around her waist, stilling her with their iron-band strength. “Jolie told you to stand still,” he reminded her, his breath warm against her nape, and she could have sworn she felt a whispering touch of lips against the sensitive pink welt where the rawhide strap had grazed her.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” she asked, catching her breath as the laces were pulled even snugger around her waist.

  “Not when it’s my room, and my wife is within,” he answered mockingly.

  “You just get back, Mister Neil?” Jolie asked, eyeing him up and down critically, thinking she’d like to get her hands on those buckskins again. “We’ve all been wonderin’ where you got off to in such a hurry when you just got home. I was askin’ Miss Leigh, but she gets real uppity an’ says she doesn’t know,” Jolie confided, much to Leigh’s dismay.

  “I rode in a few minutes ago,” he said without revealing where he’d been.

  Leigh’s knuckles whitened as she stood, hands clasped demurely together, wondering angrily where indeed he’d been all night. He had certainly not been in any great hurry to enter his wife’s room before now, she thought, remembering how endless yesterday had seemed, and how long the night had been as she’d lain awake listening for the slightest step outside her door—and finally falling into a restless sleep when none had sounded.

  “You want something to eat?” Jolie asked, already heading toward the door.

  “Thank you, Jolie, but that’s not necessary,” Neil said, smiling at the mulattress, and winning her undying loyalty, for she had a soft spot in her heart for handsome, sweet-smiling gentlemen.


  “Quick like a fox, I’ll fix up some food for you, if that Lupe’ll stay outa my way. Interfering bossy woman, an’ she still doesn’t know how to fix grits properly,” Jolie muttered as she reached the door, never glancing at Leigh’s openmouthed expression.

  “But I’m not finished dressing,” Leigh protested, glancing around for her peignoir, unable to move, the laces still held fast in Neil’s hands.

  “Mister Neil can help you now, honey. Your papa was always sayin’ it was goin’ to take a firm hand on the reins to hold you, an’ I’ve been thinkin’ there’s no better man for the job than Mister Neil,” Jolie said, her wheezing chuckle coming back through the door after she’d closed it firmly behind her.

  “Well, really…” Leigh muttered, trying to pull free again, but Neil’s grasp held her fast.

  “I don’t want you leaving Royal Rivers,” he said abruptly as he tied the laces, then releasing her, he sat down on the edge of the bed, her petticoats caught beneath his buckskin-clad thigh.

  “I don’t understand. Not leave Royal Rivers? W-why…w-whatever do you mean?” Leigh asked huskily, stuttering slightly, her eyes sliding away from his guiltily, for she had been thinking of exactly that since speaking with Althea and Guy the day before, and after her unforgivable words to Nathaniel, she thought it might be best if she left his home—at least before he asked her to leave. She still couldn’t believe she’d said what she had to the man. Despite the provocation, her behavior had been unpardonable. She was a guest in his home, and her mother would have been horrified and ashamed of her. And now, suspecting what she did, she worried, glancing over at the bottom drawer of her desk where she’d hidden the rolled-up sketch, and not knowing what to say about it, she wished to be as far away from Royal Rivers as possible.

  “I don’t want you to leave the valley unless you’re riding with me. It is too dangerous. Fortunately, you and Gil only had a stray lamb to deal with the other day, not the Comanche. Gil values his life too much to ride far from Royal Rivers, alone, and especially with a woman accompanying him. If he was so foolish to do such a thing, and he met up with a war party of Comanche braves, and he lived to return to Royal Rivers, then he would have to face my father and me. He has been taught since childhood what can happen to someone who makes a mistake,” Neil explained, eyeing her thoughtfully as he noticed the rosy color staining her pale cheeks.

  “I see, I thought you meant—well, I would think you wouldn’t be overly concerned about the Comanche. You and your sister lived with them for many years,” Leigh said, watching him carefully.

  Neil smiled grimly. “That is precisely why I am concerned. My sister and I were lucky to be taken into a respected family of the tribe and treated as if we were of their blood. Others did not fare so well. You’d be better off to be killed during an attack than to be taken captive. Always remember that, Leigh,” he warned her, thinking of what close proximity she and Gil had been to the Comanche who’d paid a visit to Riovado. If their paths had crossed, the depressing thought came to him, then Gil would be dead…Leigh would be lost to him—at least until he found her, and he would have, he vowed. And in that instant, Neil, because he loved this woman with all of his heart, felt for the first time the desperation his father must have had when his children had been kidnapped and knew the same deadly determination to reclaim what was his.

  “B-but you and your sister lived a good life with the Comanche?” she questioned.

  “A hard life, but a good one, yes,” Neil admitted, his expression shuttered as he added, “because they were family to us and we were young enough to be able to adapt to their way of life.”

  “You were raised to be a warrior, weren’t you? And your sister, Shannon, what was her life like? She was older than you, wasn’t she? And she must have been very beautiful. I’ve seen the portrait of your mother and sister,” Leigh said. “She died, didn’t she? I mean,” Leigh rushed on quickly, self-consciously, “quite a while before you were rescued?”

  “Yes, Shannon is dead,” Neil replied harshly, staring at Leigh with narrowed eyes.

  “Oh,” Leigh said almost disappointedly, but then what had she expected him to say? Why would he tell her anything different from what he had told his father all of those years ago? And, Leigh thought in growing confusion, he had sounded so positive. He would think her crazed, perhaps even be offended, if she told him of the Comanche brave who so resembled his mother and sister, and she would be betraying Gil’s trust if she spoke of their terrifying encounter.

  “And what exactly did you think I meant, my dear, when I told you not to leave Royal Rivers?” he asked, not having forgotten her initial start of surprise. “Where had you been planning on going?” he asked, and whether his question had been sarcastically intended or not, she couldn’t be certain.

  Leigh went to the wardrobe and searched through the row of gowns for her peignoir, using the time to gather her wits, even though she remembered Jolie had taken the robe yesterday to be laundered. Drawing a deep breath into her lungs, then wishing she hadn’t as she felt a stitch in her side because of her tightly laced stays, Leigh turned to face Neil, forgetful now of her previous worries as her own problems became more important than what had or had not happened in the past. There should be no pretense between them, and she desperately hoped he would say the words she longed to hear—that he wanted her to stay with him at Royal Rivers.

  “Virginia.” She startled him with her answer. “Althea is thinking about returning home, now that the war is over. She feels she should raise her children there. She believes she will be able to support them. And now that you’ve told us Travers Hill still stands, I-I—” she paused, then admitted hurriedly, “I was thinking that I should return with her. It is my home, and she’ll need me. And Guy is determined to return, also,” she confided, her tone becoming excited as she thought of Guy regaining his sight, but in Neil’s ears it sounded as if she could hardly wait to leave. “And your promise to Adam has been fulfilled. You managed to assist us out of danger, but the war is over,” she reiterated again. “We are, of course, very grateful to you, but we can do quite nicely on our own once we’ve returned to Travers Hill,” Leigh concluded, pleased with the way she had spoken her piece, her fingers crossed behind her back as she waited for his response and, hopefully, a stirring declaration of love.

  “Adam’s daughter stays here with me,” he said coldly, his gray-green eyes unblinking as he watched her intently, as if waiting for a sudden move.

  Leigh felt her heart take a painful tumble in her breast, for he had said nothing about wishing her to remain at Royal Rivers—only Adam’s daughter. And she would never leave Lucinda, nor could she stay at Royal Rivers if she found out Neil was still in love with Diosa.

  “That is completely unacceptable. She remains with me. She is my sister’s daughter, or have you forgotten that?” Leigh asked, her anger taking over now that her hopes had been dashed by his coldhearted answer.

  “I’ve forgotten nothing. And certainly not my promise to Adam, which you seem to have with very little show of conscience.”

  “How dare you say such a thing to me,” Leigh said, her anger carrying her to within a foot of where he sat on the bed staring up at her, her blue eyes dark with indignation as she glared at him. “I loved Adam. And I promised him I would take care of his daughter. And that is what Blythe would have wanted too. And my mother and father. Lucinda is a Travers. And that is what I intend to do. I’ll never leave Lucinda for someone else to raise,” she warned, thinking of Diosa.

  “Fine, then you stay at Royal Rivers,” Neil said in a bored voice.

  But in reality, he was tired. And he’d just had his hopes ruined by Leigh’s casual suggestion that she would take Adam’s daughter and return to Travers Hill with her family, and apparently, he would cease to exist as far as she was concerned, he thought savagely. Staring at her broodingly from beneath slightly lowered lids, he felt the sensual stirring in his loins that he always did whenever near her. No other woma
n, no matter how attractive, had ever had the effect on him Leigh did. She was so beautiful standing before him in her pure white underclothes, her breasts firm and high, the soft, pale flesh pressing against the delicate lace of her chemise above her small, cinched-in waist, her hips slender, but curving with womanly fullness to the triangle of dark hair outlined through the gauzy fineness of her pantalettes. He had known the loving warmth of her before, and he wished he could draw her down on the bed beside him and love her again, the harsh words spoken between them forgotten, even if just for a little while. She was the one person in his life who should be completely his to love, now that…

  Neil closed his eyes, wondering if Leigh and he were destined to live out the fate of the kachina from the underworld who escaped into their world, but was fastened back-to-back with another person, a stranger to him; damned never to gaze upon the other’s face—never to know and understand the other’s thoughts. Their existence to become a hell on earth.

  “I remain at Royal Rivers because of Lucinda?” Leigh asked quietly.

  Neil glanced up. “Why ever else?” he asked in return.

  “Yes, why ever else,” she repeated, then squared her shoulders and raised her chin, unaware of how alluring she looked as her breasts rose, taut nipples outlined against the thin linen of her chemise, her unbound hair swinging around her hips. “I would have thought you’d be glad to be rid of the responsibility of raising another man’s child. I am more closely related to Lucinda than you are,” Leigh said, glancing over at the cradle where she heard gurgling baby sounds. “I will raise her out of love. Travers Hill is her heritage too. Now that the war is over—”

  “This war is not over,” Neil interrupted her, his voice hard. “At least for some people it isn’t,” he added, a thoughtful look in his eye as he ran his hand along his unshaven chin.