“As I did?”
We were in our bedroom, and Mark, with a sudden violence that took me by surprise, put his hands on my shoulders, his fingers gripping so hard that I heard the thin lawn of my sleeves rip.
“Yes! Did you think I didn’t know what you were to Sir Edgar Cardon? I was in Paris, remember? He wasn’t so discreet there. I knew you were his mistress. There was a certain very exclusive, very expensive house, on the outskirts of Paris—do you recall it? He took you there one night. I recognized you, in spite of the heavy veil that covered your face. I was there. I followed—just another curious guest. I saw everything that you saw. I couldn’t see your reactions, but I could guess them! And I was more fascinated than I had been. More under your spell. Do you understand? A woman who can hide her emotions, who can still appear to be made of marble, who can use her head to her best advantage—do you wonder why I admired you so? Why I wanted you? You and I, Rowena. We will have everything. Remember when you said that we would be the builders? We will build our own empire.”
“And Todd?” I was amazed that my voice sounded so matter of fact.
“You don’t love him!” Mark laughed, drawing me closer to him. “And I think that by now you have reason to hate him, just as I have. He’s trampled on other people too long, had his own way too long. He’ll learn.”
“Mark—I can hardly believe all this. Or the change in you. Do I really know you?”
“You will. And you’re going to help me, just as Monique helps John.”
“John Kingman is not an ordinary rancher, is he?”
I felt Mark’s hands slide down my arm.
“You know that by now. Monique told you. John was run out of Texas. He fought for the South, and came back to find his ranch confiscated by carpetbaggers for nonpayment of taxes. It was an excuse that was used very often in those days. Can you blame him for being bitter?”
“So he became an outlaw.”
“You can call it that. Until he met Monique. She was the brains behind this idea. An isolated ranch. A place where men on the run could hide out.”
“Where stolen cattle can be driven, and rebranded, and sold in the big cow towns, where nobody asks many questions. Yes, I know. Monique told me. But you and I, Mark. Where do we enter into this?”
“You said ‘we.’” Mark’s eyes looked searchingly into mine and I returned his look with an unblinking, level glance of my own.
“I’m married to you. I think I have a right to know what we’re involved in.”
If I could not discern any emotion in my voice, then Mark could not either. I remember thinking, distantly, that it was easy to use my intelligence and to be practical—hated word!—when my emotions were not involved.
“You have every right, and you shall know! Rowena—my dearest wife—I knew that you would understand!”
I suffered Mark’s crushing embrace, I made no protest when, his fingers shaking, he began to undo the buttons that ran down the front of my gown.
“I must tell you,” I said to Mark as I stepped out of my dress and kicked it aside, “that I am not easy to arouse. I am your wife, and I will submit when you want to take me. But I’m not a whore, and I will not feign response if I feel none. Do you understand, Mark?”
In the dimness of the room his eyes looked fever-bright. “And Cord, whose name you cried out last night while I caressed your sleeping body. Did he arouse your slumbering passions?” I realized that I would have to tread very carefully as I looked into Mark’s face, narrowing my eyes slightly.
“Are you jealous, Mark?”
“Answer me!”
“Well, then—” I chose my words deliberately. “At the beginning, yes. I didn’t think we would live through the fury of that storm. I was so frightened that it was easy to be abandoned. And afterward… well, you know what happened. I think I was too cold to suit him.”
“But you continued to want him—to dream about him. I must know the truth, Rowena!”
Mark’s face was flushed as he pulled the chemise from my body with unusual roughness.
For the first time, since we had come here to talk, I let some emotion come into my voice. “Yes! Why not? No woman likes to feel rejected. It would have been different if I had been the one. If he came crawling to my feet then I would not want him. If you want a passionate creature as your wife, Mark, then you’ll have to get used to the fact that I might someday desire another man.” I saw the look on his face and forced a laugh. “My goodness! How Monique would laugh if she thought you were capable of jealousy! She’s told me how understanding John is and how she loves him all the more for it. Must our marriage be governed by bourgeois morality?”
The one weapon I had against Mark was rationality. He prided himself upon his logic and his intellectual outlook.
Now I saw a baffled look come into his eyes as he gazed down at me. “You—expect me to allow you to take lovers?”
“I would be very discreet of course. And I would expect the same of you. Really, Mark, you’ve been begging me to understand, and now that I have accepted your philosophy, you don’t seem too happy about it. Are we to be partners or not? If you wanted a meek, conventional wife, you should not have chosen me, especially since you know me so well.”
“Suddenly you’ve changed, Rowena. You’re no longer the lost, unhappy girl who turned to me for comfort.”
“It was the shock to my system. I’m not used to being pregnant! But now I’ve had time to think and adjust myself, and I’m back to being the woman you fell in love with. Or was that a pretense on your part?”
“Don’t say that, Rowena! You know how I’ve always admired your strength of character.”
“Then you’ll take me as I am?”
He was looking at my body, his hands reaching out to touch me. “On any terms, my darling. Just as long as you’re all mine in our bedroom. Just as long as you remember you’re my wife, mine!”
There would be time later for self-hate. For disgust and revulsion at what I had submitted to. I think that only another woman would understand what I am speaking of. From the moment that Mark put his hands on me, drawing me before the mirror, I closed my mind to what was happening to me, seeing my body as someone else’s, willing myself not to feel, not to think. I almost wished I had had an excess of champagne again, to dull my senses. The French have a word for a man like my husband. Voyeur.
I heard him whisper, “When we build our own home, there will be mirrors everywhere in our bedroom to reflect the perfection of your body. Silk sheets on the bed. And rose-shaded lamps. You will learn—I will teach you to surrender yourself to the pure pleasure of sensuality…”
I learned instead to dissemble. Mark’s caresses did not arouse me, but I learned to accept them passively. Apparently satisfied with my complaisance, he grew more expansive regarding his plans—ours he called them—for the future.
I listened, frowning slightly. “But, Mark, why is the SD so important to you? I thought you missed your law practice in Boston, and civilization. You once talked of traveling in Europe.”
“We can go to Europe later. And as for Boston—what could I ever hope to be but a lawyer, just another one of many? To be appointed a judge, perhaps, when I am old, just as my father was? Rowena, this is where the future of this country lies, this is the time to start building. Nowhere else in the world is there so much opportunity—acres and acres of land to be had for almost nothing. The SD is only the beginning, our foothold here. The nucleus around which we can build an empire as vast as that of Charlemagne. Do you think that certain other far-sighted men have not already recognized this? The old world is growing cramped. Why do you think that men like the Marquis of Mora, John Tunstall, yes, even your own father, have torn up their roots to plant new ones here? We will be the new aristocracy: It’s time for men like my uncle who only know the use of fists and guns and think to keep what they have seized by brute force alone, to move aside.”
“And how will you contrive to make them do so except
by the use of guns and violence?” I retorted sharply. “You’ve often talked of respect for the law, Mark. How can you justify your own disregard for it?”
“My dearest, I do not disregard the law. I know the law. Believe me, everything we do will be perfectly legal! There will be no violence unless it is forced upon us—and in the end, we’ll bring law and order into the territory, preparing it for statehood.”
“And you, I suppose, will be our first senator.”
“With you beside me as my wife.” My sarcasm had no effect on Mark. He squeezed my hand lightly. “Trust me, Rowena.”
Suddenly, I was remembering something that Jesus Montoya had once said. Something about ambition and money and power. And being able to corrupt the incorruptible with enough money… Money! Mark intended to buy his dreams with money. The thought that frightened me was that he might succeed.
I had become too clever to let him see how completely I opposed him. I sat with the others every evening and listened, with growing amazement and disbelief, to their carefully laid plans. John and Monique Kingman were very much involved too; Monique even more enthusiastic than her husband. I began to think of a well-thought-out military campaign.
Get rid of the “robber barons” first. Men like Shannon, who would hold back progress. Organize vigilance committees to keep the lawless elements out of the territory.
I raised an eyebrow at that, and Monique shook her head at me playfully. “I know what you are thinking! But we will all be respectable, law-abiding citizens by then.”
“And until then?”
They expected me to ask questions. Mark was pleased that I had begun to take interest in his schemes. “A legal revolution,” he called it.
And for all their talk of getting rid of the lawless element, it was this same element they planned to use in order to achieve their ends.
“But only the elite—the very best,” Monique said, her eyes shining. “Professional gunmen who have been clever enough to stay on the right side of the law.”
“An army of mercenaries?”
“Under disciplined leadership, of course,” Mark put in. “And there are a few men we know of who already have their own, well-organized bands of men who will follow them and take orders—for a certain share of the profits, of course. We’re not concerned with the fools, the criminals who kill for the sake of killing, or in the heat of rage. We want men who are self-disciplined, and who look ahead into the future.”
Even John Kingman leaned forward in his chair to look at me, a slightly bitter note underlying his soft Texas drawl. “Every man dreams of being able to settle down some day. To have something of his own, to stop running. The constant taking of risks begins to pall, after a while.”
Monique broke in: “Surely you can see it, Rowena? We will be offering those who throw in their lot with us the chance to begin a new life. To become respectable, yet with enough money to lead a good life.”
“Rowena, you shall be our devil’s advocate,” Mark said teasingly. “What objections can you see now?”
“I seem to recall a Chinese proverb about riding a tiger,” I said slowly.
“Give such men weapons and the license to kill—how do you know that when it’s over they will stop, or that you will be able to continue to control them?”
It was Monique who shrugged airily.
“But who says there will be any killing? Only if it’s necessary—and there will be enough for all. Why should we have to quarrel among each other like dogs?”
“I think the men we choose will have too much intelligence not to consider the advantages they are being offered against the disadvantages of attempting to be too greedy,” Mark said, and I put forward no more arguments for the moment.
Days passed. I realized, without having to be told, that we were not, after all, going to Boston. Another of Mark’s clever ruses. He had meant to come here all along, but his uncle would believe that we were still journeying slowly across the continent. Clever, clever Mark. I was constantly discovering new facets to his nature. Difficult, now, to believe that I had ever dismissed him lightly as his uncle’s errand boy; a weak, but good-natured young man, nothing out of the ordinary. I had seen only what he had meant me to see, of course. No, I must never underestimate Mark again, nor his infinite patience.
The strange thing was that I believed he actually loved me. I had become as much of an obsession with him as his dreams of power. It was not only the money that I had brought him; he really wanted me, and my approval of his plans.
Nevertheless I was careful. There were times when I was almost frightened, although I never let Mark see this. I was his wife, I submitted to his peculiar way of making love, and yet I held myself aloof. As I had warned him, I made no pretended response, but there were times when I wondered if my very coldness did not excite him more, as it had Sir Edgar.
“My lovely statue,” he whispered. “Someday I will bring you to life!” But in the meantime he seemed content with the nightly proof that I was indeed his possession, to be touched and handled as he wished.
I began to feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into the depths of a nightmare from which there was no escape. For all the solicitude I was shown I was a prisoner here. I was never alone. If Mark and John Kingman left the ranch house together, as they often did, there was always Monique, the perfect hostess to keep me company. And in spite of all my outward calm and resolution, I had begun to feel that I was living on my nerve ends.
This, then was the state of affairs when, late one afternoon, I heard Monique call out that we had visitors.
Forty-Two
I had fallen into the habit of resting each afternoon, just as Monique did. It provided me with an excuse to be alone for a little while, for Mark, if he was not out somewhere, would usually sit out on the trellised back porch with John Kingman, discussing business.
But on this particular afternoon Mark surprised me by coming quietly into the room, waking me out of the light doze I had fallen into. I must have sensed his presence. I opened my eyes to find him staring intently down at me.
“Why do you have to wear anything in bed? Only my eyes will ever see you here. Let me take it off for you, my darling.”
He bent over me, already beginning to slip off the thin chemise I wore. With a sinking heart, I recognized the telltale flush on his face, the ardent note in his voice.
A little later he whispered, “I cannot imagine a pleasanter way to spend a long afternoon than making love to my beautiful wife.”
I closed my eyes and willed the time to pass quickly, wondering how I could stand much more of this. And as if he meant to force me back to awareness, Mark began to kiss me.
It was with a feeling of reprieve that I heard Monique’s voice; and then, a few minutes later, her tap at the door.
“Do hurry, you two lovebirds!”
Over my protests, Mark tossed aside my crumpled chemise and began to hook me into the thin cotton gown I had worn that morning.
“Darling, you don’t need to feel ashamed of your magnificent body! Why must you be so modest? Look at the way Monique dresses. Besides, these are old friends. There’s no need to stand on ceremony.”
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as he hurried me outside. My face unnaturally flushed, my hair tumbled, my lips still bruised and slightly swollen from Mark’s passionate kisses.
I told myself bitterly later on that I should have been warned by the strange, barely suppressed note of triumph in Mark’s voice when he spoke of “old friends.” For when we went out onto the porch, Mark’s arm around my waist, the first person I saw was Lucas—and behind him Jesus Montoya, one eyebrow lifted as he surveyed my disheveled state, his mouth twisting in the same sardonic smile I remembered so well.
I couldn’t say a word. And after that first glance I couldn’t look in Lucas’s direction again—not then. I was only too conscious of how I must look, standing there with Mark’s arm holding me so possessively against his side. A pair of lovers,
fresh out of bed. I think I might have fallen if Mark hadn’t held me so tightly.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, of course,” Montoya was saying in his smooth, silky-soft voice. “My congratulations to you both.”
Lucas said nothing. And I—I wished that the earth would open up and swallow me.
I became aware that Montoya was staring at me curiously through heavy-lidded eyes.
“Thank you, señor. My wife and I are happy to see you,” I heard Mark say, and my own voice, repeating through lips that seemed numb: “Thank you…”
As if we had all been posing stiffly for a photograph before, there was suddenly the bustle of movement all around me. I heard John Kingman’s bluff drawl, Monique’s prettily accented voice; and Mark was helping me into a chair, his fingers lingering possessively on my shoulders.
I remember thinking: I must be calm, I must be calm! This is some new trick of Mark’s to make me give myself away… and I took a deep breath, trying to still the wild beating of my heart. “You see? I came as soon as I received your message. Jesus Montoya does not forget his old friends.”
Did I imagine it, or had Montoya’s coal-dark eyes flickered in my direction for just an instant?
“And we’re sure glad to see you. I think you’ll find your journey worthwhile after we’ve talked.” John Kingman’s voice held a significance I could not miss.
“Ah, that is what I had hoped! And Madame—” Montoya let his eyes linger openly on Monique, his gallantry as exaggerated as usual. “You grow lovelier each time I see you.”
Monique’s tinkling laugh had suddenly become jarring to my ears. Recklessly I glanced again at Lucas, and he was looking at her.
“What a flatterer you are, señor!” And then, her voice becoming almost caressing, “Lucas, you’ve hardly said a word yet. Surely you’re not still angry with me?”
The Wildest Heart Page 52