“Did I coerce you into telling me you’d marry me? You acted as if you were willing and eager. Was it all a game with you? Rowena, tonight I’m going to have proof of your real feelings. Are you capable of any real feelings? Kiss me then, as if you love me, as if you meant what you said, and I will not doubt you.”
I let my lips part under his, and I suffered his searching, encroaching tongue. Hadn’t I learned from Edgar Cardon? And yet even Edgar had always accused me of coldness, and I had never been able to prevent a certain feeling of being stifled—buried alive—when I felt his weight above me. I felt the same way now. I let Ramon kiss me, but I could not respond. I suffered his body on mine, his hands on my breasts, and a voice in my mind kept telling me dully that this was something I must get used to.
I was to marry Ramon. It was the only sensible, logical way out of my dilemma. Not Lucas. Never Lucas, who loved another woman, who hated me as much as I hated him—who wanted me in the same way that I wanted him! Oh God, not Lucas, who might be dying even now; who was the only man who could kiss me past the point of thinking or of caring.
“Oh Rowena… Rowena!” Ramon was whispering. “You kiss like a whore… like an angel! You’re so cold, so unapproachable to look at, and yet, when a man holds you close and your mouth opens under his, you’re like one of the sirens the Greeks wrote about, the taste of your mouth so sweet you can drive a man out of his mind!”
I let Ramon kiss me, and I told myself that it didn’t matter. Once we were out of the valley I would be able to manage him; he would be different, everything would be different.
Ramon’s fingers were fumbling with the tiny buttons that held my gown together in front, opening it down to my waist. His lips moved against the skin of my neck, of my breasts. And I could feel—nothing. I lay there, unmoving, and I thought again of Sir Edgar Cardon, who had taken my cold, unresisting body so often, after that first time, and I wondered why it was that I had never been able to bring myself to pretend. With Todd I had come almost to the point of forgetfulness. Lucas had taken me beyond. Why did I have to think of Lucas?
I suddenly became aware that Ramon had raised himself up on his elbows and was staring down at me. He put his hand on one of my naked breasts, and I winced, not able to prevent my instinctive reaction.
“You’ll let me take you, even if you obviously don’t enjoy my touch?”
My voice sounded tired and unemotional. “I thought you said you wanted me. But if you’ve changed your mind, I could use some sleep.”
His face changed. I thought for a moment that he would strike me, and I didn’t care.
His voice was disturbingly quiet, however. “Were you thinking only of sleep when you pressed yourself against my brother like a woman in ecstasy, and put your arms around his body? Do you think I am a blind man, that cannot see what is before his eyes?”
I looked into his eyes, startled and angry, and they were like shiny brown stones, without feeling or expression.
“No, I am not blind, Rowena! But sometimes a man in love does not want to admit the truth. I loved you. I think I was infatuated from the first moment I set eyes on you. There was something in your very coldness, in your reserve, that excited me, intrigued me. I dreamed of you, and I thought that I would never be lucky enough to see you again, until Lucas brought you here. And you were still beautiful, still strong, still so cold and so arrogant in spite of everything I knew you must have gone through! I loved you all the more. I tried to show you respect and gentleness, all the things I thought you needed and were your due. And Lucas swore he had not touched you, and even Julio said that it was so. I thought you hated him, despised him! But was it that? Was it really that, or something else?”
He shook me, catching my shoulders with fingers that bit into my flesh like iron claws. “Answer me, damn you! Why did you say you would marry me? Was it only to make him jealous? Did you come here with me tonight only to make sure I would not finish the job of killing him?”
I whispered, “Did you want to kill him? You could have, and you didn’t. And was it only because of me that you were so angry? I think you have always been jealous of Lucas, you have always resented him… and I provided a convenient excuse, didn’t I?”
Outside I could hear the sound of the rising wind, and the thunder sounded louder. Or was it thunder? I thought I heard voices; the sound of horses’ hooves, and something of my sudden apprehension must have shown in my face, for Ramon suddenly became still as he watched me narrowly.
He put his face close to mine, and I smelled the wine on his breath. This time I would not answer him; I made myself stare coldly up at him, and his laugh was an ugly sound.
“A short while ago you were hysterical. Do you realize that it was the first time you have ever showed any real emotion? But it was not for me, it was for my brother. Even when he slapped your face, and then took you in his arms… even when you struck him there was feeling there, was there not? And to me you have never showed more than a condescending tolerance. Even now. Why is it you have not struggled or screamed? Why did you pretend to kiss me back a few moments ago?”
I was stung into replying. “Why did you drag me in here? If it was only to hurl abuse at me, I wish that you would say whatever else you have to say, and let me go!”
“As easily as that, eh? And you think that everything will be all right in the morning. Would you still marry me after all that has happened?”
“That is up to you, isn’t it?” I countered. “I think you are not yourself tonight, Ramon. In the morning…”
“In the morning! You think the rising of the sun will make things different? My God, how cold and how calm you are! You lie here in bed with me, and you speak of tomorrow. Do you think I cannot see the calculation in your eyes? ‘Tomorrow Ramon will be himself again; he will apologize for his bad behavior, and things will go on as they were.’ How easy to manipulate you must have thought me! You and my mother and Lucas! Well, I tell you that I am not finished with you yet. After the way you have behaved, I have a right to find out what I am getting. A block of ice, or a woman!”
Suddenly Ramon sat up, ripping my gown down the seam from waist to hem with one long, vicious movement. I made an involuntary gesture to cover myself, and he laughed.
“There’s no need for modesty between us now! Tonight I fought for your honor and gained you as the prize. And what a prize!” His voice thickened as he gazed down at me. “A woman who does not need to wear those hideous corsets to improve her figure, a woman with a body as slender and beautiful as a dancer’s. How lovely you looked, even when you were dressed as an Apache squaw. No wonder even Julio wanted you! You have a body and a mouth meant for passion and for pleasure. Perhaps it is only a matter of teaching you how to feel both.”
He had already begun to undress, still watching me. The gown I had worn lay in pieces on the floor, along with my petticoats, and the thin chemise I had worn under it was ripped down the front, to the waist, hardly sufficient to hide anything from his hot, ardent gaze.
I forget what went through my mind during the next few moments. The last thing I remember thinking, as he turned down the lamp and came to me, was that I must not think of Lucas! All it had been was a physical, carnal attraction—an animalistic thing. Perhaps Ramon’s possession of me would wipe it out. I could not help the stiffness of my limbs when Ramon pulled the chemise over my head, nor my instinctive shudder of revulsion when he began to caress me. I began to think of the promises I had made to myself when I left England, that I would be completely free, that I would never allow any man to use my body again. And yet, it was happening once more, and I had done nothing to prevent it. This was my punishment for the ugly, uncontrollable feelings that Lucas Cord’s touch and kisses had aroused in me. Why could it not have been Ramon instead who set my pulse racing and my heart pounding so hard I thought it might burst from my body? Why couldn’t I feel, or at least pretend to feel?
Ramon tried to arouse some kind of response in me. He kissed me,
he was gentle with his caresses. But I could give nothing in return. His body was warm, his flesh smooth to the touch. His embrace, at first, had nothing of the roughness and brutality I had experienced from his brother.
“Hold me, Rowena,” he whispered. “Put your arms around me, let yourself relax. I swear I will try not to hurt you.” And a little later, his voice roughened by passion, “For God’s sake! Do you find it so hard to kiss me back? Why do you lie so still?”
I felt like a wooden puppet, and soon he lost his patience and became cruelly rough.
“What does it take to turn your coldness into warmth? Is it force you enjoy? Is it harshness?”
His kisses became hurtful, when I tried to twist my head aside he wrapped his fingers in my hair to hold me still and kissed me until I was breathless and gasping with pain and anger. His kisses were like blows, leaving bruises down the side of my neck and across my breasts. And in the end, when I could not help struggling against him, he took me by force, the pain of his entry making me cry out. And when it was over at last, I felt bruised and empty and degraded as he had meant me to feel, I think, when he had first brought me up to his bedroom.
I tried to rise, when he finally rolled off my body, but he pushed me back against the pillows. “In such a hurry to leave already? No—I have not done with you yet!”
Dully, I watched him walk across the room, and the lamplight became brighter, hurting my eyes. And now he was watching me, his mouth twisted in a sneer.
“No blood on the sheets? I see now that your coldness was all for me. Perhaps you showed another side of your nature to the man who took your virginity! Tell me, as a matter of curiosity, who was he, Rowena? Was it Shannon? Was it Lucas? Was that why you suddenly agreed to marry me? An available, gullible fool, eh? Were you looking for a convenient father for the child you may be carrying?”
I sat up, feeling bruised all over, forcing my eyes to meet his levelly.
“Oh, Ramon! What does it matter? You’ve had what you wanted from me, why can’t we leave it at that? You don’t have to marry me.”
He walked toward me, and I think he expected me to shrink away from him in shame and fear, but I would not do so. I stood up and faced him, with no attempts at false coyness.
“Marry you? Do you think I want secondhand goods? No, not for all your money would I marry you now that I know you for what you are! A lying, cheating bitch!”
He slapped me, hard and unexpectedly, sending me floundering back against the bed. “You will tell me, damn you! Who was he? Or was there more than one man? God, when I think how pure and untouchable I thought you were, with your cool and haughty manners and your way of holding yourself aloof—but it was only for me, wasn’t it? How did you intend to account for your slightly shopworn state? Answer me!”
He raised his hand to strike me again and I rolled away from him, kneeling on the bed to face him.
“You want answers when you no longer have a right to ask me questions? Why don’t you use your knife on me too, Ramon? Or would you prefer to shoot me? You arrogant Spanish men with your stupid, empty talk of honor! You knew that I was brought here by force, and you closed your eyes to it. You took me by force, and now you’re disappointed to find I was not a virgin! But if I had responded to you, if I had played the whore, it would have satisfied you better, wouldn’t it?” I pushed the hair back from my face, past caution, past caring, and my eyes glared into his. “I’ll tell you why I hate men, Ramon. And I’ll tell you why my blood didn’t stain your sheets tonight. My stepfather raped me, when I was only eighteen. And you’re the only other man who has had me since. Not Todd, not Lucas. Yes, even he, in his way, was too much of a man to try to take me by force, even when he had me at his mercy in the Apache camp!”
Ramon’s face had changed; he was staring at me with a strange look in his eyes: as if he did not want to believe me, for his own pride’s sake. “And now perhaps you wish he had taken you. I saw the way you two were kissing, remember? And yesterday, after you had cut your fingers with the knife, it was Lucas you wanted to see. It is always Lucas! It is because of him that I am trapped here, as if I too had been a criminal. My mother—when Lucas is here she does not care for her own sons. And Luz—and now you. Well, at least I had you first! It is one thing he cannot take away from me.” He caught my look and gave a strangely twisted smile. “You are thinking that I must hate him very much. You said so before. It is an odd thing. I do not hate him, but there are times when I do not like him either. And yet he is my brother; there is that bond between us. And you—for all your talk of hate, I think you feel the same way. I think that if it had been Lucas who brought you to his room tonight, your reactions might have been very different!”
I had no more answers for him. We looked at each other for a moment longer, and then I got up from the bed, and he made no move to stop me. I was naked, the torn remnants of my clothes not worth picking up. And I was past the point of caring. I walked to the door and unbolted it, and Ramon said behind me, his voice flat and without expression, “I suppose you are going to find him. Don’t forget to try my mother’s bedroom first.”
I didn’t look back as I left his room, closing the door gently behind me. I think that by then my mind was a blank. I acted purely by instinct. I walked boldly down the gallery and pushed open the door of Lucas’s room. He wasn’t there, of course, but had I really expected to find him? He was hurt, wounded, no doubt he would turn to Elena for comfort.
Would I really have gone to her door, knocked on it, and demanded to see him? In the state of mind I was in at that time, I might have done so. All I knew was that I had to see Lucas, I had to find the answers to the strange yearning and weakness that consumed me whenever he touched me. I remembered the roughly efficient way in which he’d tended to my cut and blistered feet in the Apache camp; and later, the way he’d taken charge when I cut my fingers. Suddenly I remembered what my mind had been trying to shut out for the past hour, the way he had looked when I had let Ramon take me away. All that blood… Sudden panic took me. Perhaps he was badly hurt, perhaps he was dying, or dead by now.
I walked swiftly along the galena, my bare feet making no sound. Outside the thunder sounded much louder than before, and I thought I heard rain spattering against the roof in fitful spurts. Elena’s door was open, and surprisingly she came out of her room as I drew level with it, just as if she had heard me, or had expected me to come. She looked at me. We looked at each other. And the only sign of surprise she showed at my unconventional appearance was the slight narrowing of her eyes.
I spoke first, forestalling anything she might have said.
“Where is Lucas?”
She threw back her head, and her face might have been a mask, except for the slight flaring of her nostrils. Her voice was a hard, cutting whisper.
“You dare to ask me that? You, coming naked from Ramon’s bed? I should have listened to my instincts when you first came here! Your eyes were your father’s, and that is what deceived me, but I should have known that your nature was not like his. I should have known that for all your talk of hate and dislike you wanted to take him from me. Did you plan everything that happened tonight, you and Ramon? Did you?”
All the smoothness and self-assurance had gone from her voice, and I could see that her fingers were like claws at her sides, longing to rake at my face.
I said contemptuously, “Did you plan, just so, to take Todd Shannon from his wife?” and I heard the hissing of her breath. I looked beyond her into her room and saw only her empty bed, with rumpled sheets that told of her restlessness, and she saw my look.
“You thought he’d be here? Did you think that if he was I would let him come to you? I underestimated you, Rowena Dangerfield, but I do not underestimate the love that Lucas has for me. Yes. He loves me; neither you, nor any other woman will ever have more than his casual embraces!”
“In that case, it should not worry you if I want to see him, should it?” I said coldly. “Where is he?”
“He’s gone. That Montoya—he let him go, with a storm coming up, and he’s wounded, with a bullet still in him. Do you think, if he was here, that he would not be with me!”
I turned from her without another word and went down the gallery to my room. Luz was not there, but even if she had been, I would not have cared. The windows had been left open, and the wind had put the lamp out, but the lightning that streaked across the sky gave its eerie, occasional light, and I found my clothes. A blouse, high-necked in the Apache style. A full, ankle-length skirt. Moccasins for my feet. I did not bother to wear anything else underneath.
Elena had followed me.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“I think you know.”
“You stupid fool! You’ll never find him! He’s probably out of the valley by now. Go out in this storm and you’ll drown. And you’re wasting your time, I tell you! Lucas hates you. Why don’t you go back to the warmth and safety of Ramon’s bed?”
“Is that what you would do in my place? You told me once that I was too much like you. Perhaps I’m just as unscrupulous. Does that make you less sure of yourself?”
She stood back to let me pass her, her mouth twisted. “Go then! And if the storm does not kill you, perhaps Lucas will.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “At least, you see, I am willing to take a chance.”
I went down the stairs, not looking back to see if she followed me or not. I heard voices in the dining room. Montoya’s deep, sardonic drawl and Luz’s high, hysterical crying.
I pushed open the door, and they turned to face me. She was huddled in a chair, her hands over her face, and he had his back to the fireplace, facing her.
Luz raised her head, staring at me. Jesus Montoya’s eyes narrowed speculatively.
The Wildest Heart Page 37