by Diana Palmer
Amelia found Ted to be as undemanding and kind as she'd first thought. He had a bright personality, uncomplicated. As they danced, they talked of the East, because he was a frequent traveler there on business for his father's banking firm.
"I know Atlanta very well," he told her. "It is going to be a major city one day, you know. It has the potential for greatness."
"I find it maddening to live in," Amelia replied. "I enjoy the spaciousness of this vast land, although El Paso is no small town either! One can become lost there in no time!"
"I don't doubt it. Miss Howard, may I call on you?"
"I am staying with the Culhanes at present," she said reluctantly, "and my father is away on a hunting trip. I do not feel comfortable asking you to call on me there. It would be best if you wait until my father returns. We live in El Paso, in a boardinghouse."
"I see." He glanced toward King and Darcy. King was glaring at them openly.
"Mr. Culhane doesn't like me," Amelia said abruptly. "My father has decided that I would make a good match for King's brother, Alan. King does not share this sentiment. He feels that I am unsuitable."
"Does he really?" Ted, who had known King for many years, had never seen him hostile toward a womanespecially a beautiful woman like this. It was unexpected, to say the least.
"I should not have spoken so openly," Amelia said quickly, shocked at her own forwardness. She flushed. "Please forgive me. It has been a trying week."
"There is nothing to forgive," he chided gently. "You dance divinely, Miss Howard."
"Thank you. I haven't danced in many years, and only then with my brother. The band is very good, is it not?"
"It is, indeed. The man playing the violin is my brother, and the flute-player is my sister's husband."
"I am impressed!" she said. "Are you musical, Mr. Simpson?"
"No, sadly. Are you?"
"I play the piano, a little," she confessed. "It is my only real accomplishment." She wisely kept the rest of them secret. This man knew King. She didn't want her enemy to know that she was anything but his image of herdull and not very bright and totally spineless. The last thing in the world she coveted was King's interest. Let Darcy have him, she thought in panic, feeling his eyes on her even across the room. Why was he always watching her?
"I cannot believe that such a lovely woman has only one accomplishment." Ted chuckled. "I must get to know you, Miss Howard, and see what others you possess."
"If my father agrees, I should enjoy receiving you," she said demurely.
His hand around her waist contracted and pulled her almost imperceptibly closer. "No more than I shall, Miss Howard," he replied. He smiled down at her, and across the room, a tall, silver-eyed man had to fight down a sudden murderous impulse.
Chapter Four
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King didn't ask Amelia to dance. His mother approached him just as the party was winding down and bluntly asked why.
He was sipping punch, watching her dance again with Ted Simpson. "I have no desire to dance with Miss Howard," he said. "Isn't it obvious?"
"You make it so obvious that the other guests are speculating about the cause," Enid said shortly. Her dark eyes narrowed. "You might bow to tradition long enough to give the appearance of civility toward her."
He cocked an eyebrow. "Do I strike you as a man who gives a damn about tradition?" he asked with some of her own bluntness. "I have no affection for or interest in your guest," he added coldly. "I came here to spend some time with Darcy, whom I shall most likely marry one day soon."
Enid had to bite her tongue not to say anything. "She will be a match for you," she said finally.
"Indeed she will. She has spirit, and she is fearless. "
"She is also cold-hearted and an utter witch!" she added fiercely. "And you are blind."
She turned and walked back to the other side of the room to renew an acquaintance with some of the other women present.
King glared after her. He wasn't about to be swayed by his mother. Perhaps she liked that docility that clung to Amelia. He did not. In fact, it infuriated him. So did the look of her, radiant in Ted's arms, laughing up at him as she danced.
A picture of her in a green gingham dress, dancing under the mesquite trees with a bouquet of wildflowers, flashed unwelcome into his mind. Amelia, her blond hair flying in the wind, her brown eyes laughing, as they were now
His hand contracted in his pocket, and he felt his anger grow as he watched the way Ted handled her. She should not allow such familiarity to a man whom she had only met, he told himself. She was silly and stupid to let his flattery affect her so!
He almost walked over and took her away from the other man. It was an impulse so unlike him that he deliberately turned away from the temptation and went back to dance with Darcy.
She walked out onto the shadowed end of the moonlit porch with him, noticing his preoccupation.
"What troubles you, King?" she asked.
"Roundup," he muttered. He lit a cigar without asking her permission and hooked his boot on the lower rail of the porch to smoke it.
"I hate the taste of cigars," she said haughtily.
He glanced down at her with an amused smile. "Shouldn't I kiss you, then?" he chided.
She moved closer, almost purring. "If you like."
He threw the cigar down with little appreciation for its age and cost and drew Darcy roughly against him. He noticed the flicker of her eyelids and her fixed smile, and he wanted to curse her. Darcy pretended to be enslaved by him, but her distaste of intimacy with him was all too visible. Darcy's people had been well-to-do, but that was no longer the case. Darcy liked high living, and with her father facing bankruptcy, King was her best bet. How he hated knowing that she barely tolerated his embraces for the security marriage to him would offer!
He kissed her roughly and felt her hands go against his chest, pushing, almost at once.
"King!" she laughed, drawing back. "How impetuous! We aren't even engaged," she added suggestively.
He let her go and calmly lit another cigar. She wasn't the first woman who suffered him for gain. He could only remember one woman in his life who'd welcomed him in intimacy. But she'd only been hoping to marry him for his fortune. When she thought he was at risk of losing it, she'd run away with a tinker. Ironically, the two of them had been killed by a band of renegades led by a Mexican devil who made a habit of raiding up into Texas. The Rangers were after him even now, although he was like a will-o'-the-wisp to catch. One day, he promised himself, he'd see Rodriguez swing from a rope or stand in front of a firing squad. He was sure that Alice would have come back to him, that she had truly loved him. She had panicked at the thought of being poor, that was all. She would have married him. But Rodriguez had killed her before she could see her mistake in running away. Alice had welcomed him into her bed time and time again, and he still woke sweating, remembering her quicksilver response. He had mourned her deeply, just after her death. But over the years, the sting had faded somewhat. Not that he forgave Rodriguez. Oh, no.
He smoked his cigar quietly, lost in his thoughts, and decided that Darcy's reluctance didn't affect him. Perhaps if he had cared about her as he had cared about Alice it would have.
Quinn Howard had settled himself down for the night in a small canyon of the Guadalupe Mountains in New Mexico. He had a smokeless fire and over it he was roasting a rabbit. The critter was mostly skin and bones, but it would fill empty space. He was sick to death of hardtack and jerky.
He settled back against his saddle with his rifle loaded and ready on the colorful but faded serape beside him. His blond hair was sweaty and full of dust from the day's hard ride, tracking the outlaw Rodriguez. The man had actually robbed a second bank while Quinn was trailing him, down in El Paso. He'd struck down a bank president and badly wounded a young employee. Quinn had doubled back, almost to the city, and then caught the trail back up into New Mexico again. He felt as if he were going in circles.
As he
chewed the tough, sinewy rabbit meat, he wished he had a good tracker with him. It wasn't his best skill. His expertise with a pistol and rifle was that. But he did well enough, he supposed.
He hoped Amelia was all right. Their father drank too much these days, and he could be violent. Quinn had tried to find a way to get Amelia away from him, but it wasn't possible just yet. He slept in the Ranger barracks when he was in town, which wasn't often, and he was stationed at Alpine, not El Paso. It would take a better rank and a better posting before he could offer her any alternative.
Poor Amelia. Her life had certainly been no bed of roses. Quinn grieved for her. Only he knew the agonies she suffered and the danger she faced. He had to do something soon, he determined. The drinking was worse, and so was its aftermath. One day Hartwell Howard would go too far. His blood pressure would shoot high enough to kill him during one of his outbursts, or he would hurt Amelia. Quinn knew that he could never live with a tragedy if he'd done nothing to try and prevent it. The problem of Amelia had to be solved, and soon. He wished he knew what had made his father change so drastically, and he decided that it was probably grief for the loss of his wife and two little sons.
If only Amelia felt a tenderness for Alan Culhane, he decided. A marriage between them would be a good idea, and it would put Amelia under King's protection.
King disliked her, but he wouldn't allow her to be harmed. King was always controlled, and he would never lay a brutal hand on her.
Now there would have been a match. If Amelia had been her old self she would have been perfect for King. Quinn was sorry that she'd changed so.
He laughed at his own folly in entertaining such thoughts of matchmaking. They were enemies, and it was better so. Better to let King cling to his misconceptions about Amelia and steer her toward Alan, who would be kind to her even if she never reached any great and passionate heights with him. He finished his rabbit, and without having solved the problem of Amelia, finally leaned back and drifted off to sleep to the crackle of the fire and the distant wailing of coyotes.
Amelia had seen King go out on the dark porch with Darcy, and something inside her grew small and withdrew. Nevertheless, she pretended gaiety, and Ted responded to her charm with every scrap of his.
By the end of the evening, he had promised to call on her the moment her father was back and they were home again. He didn't realize how Amelia dreaded her father's return and the certainty of violence when they were back at the boardinghouse. The one point in her favor she reminded herself again was that it was a crowded boardinghouse at the moment, and her father was forced to be more circumspect than usual.
But his job at the bank meant that soon they would be able to afford a small house, and that would place Amelia at his mercy as his pain and rage grew. And inevitably, soon, he would die
She was standing alone at the drawing room door while Ted went to get her a cup of punch, and her face and eyes registered the panic she felt.
"Are you all right?" King asked suddenly.
Shocked by his silent approach, she looked up with wide, wounded eyes and heard his breath catch at the vulnerability in her flushed face. Their eyes held, and Amelia felt new and shocking sensations tingling all along her slender body.
"Amelia?" Darcy called sharply, and rapidly moved close to hold onto King's arm with a look of pretended concern. "You do look ghastly, my dear. What is it?"
Amelia felt patronized, unsettled, and afraid. She looked around with blind apprehension for Ted, and relief flamed on her features when she saw him waving to her from the punch bowl, where he was waiting to be served.
"Oh, you're thirsty, is that it?" Darcy dismissed the incident at once. "Ted will look after her, King. Do come and meet Mr. Farmer. Amelia will excuse us, won't you?"
"In a minute, Darcy," King said coldly.
Darcy looked taken aback, but she forced a smile and moved reluctantly away.
Amelia's wide brown eyes met King's, and she colored again, having lost the rescue she was certain of having.
King eyed her with speculation and renewed interest. The electricity that had flashed between them was shared. He knew she'd felt it, from the fear in her eyes and the color that was flooding her cheeks. He liked the sense of satisfied pleasure it gave him, to know that her reaction to him was violent and unpretended. It had been a long, long time since a woman had been attracted to him physically and not financially. It made him feel strange.
He moved closer, deliberately. Not blatantly closer, but enough that she could feel the heat from his body and smell the cologne he used. He could see her bodice move more rapidly as her breathing changed.
"What is it, Amelia?" His voice sounded different. Husky. Deep. Smooth, like a flow of molasses.
She could barely get enough breath to answer him. "As your as Miss Valverde said, I'mI'm only hot."
His big, lean hand came up unobtrusively to lie against her bare arm where the sleeve of her gown was separated from the long, white opera gloves she wore with it. The touch of him was electric, frightening. Her pupils dilated wildly as she met his eyes.
"Your skin certainly is," he said quietly, frowning. "Are you feverish?"
"No! I mean, no. It's just the crush of people, I'm sure it is, so many in one room !"
"You're babbling," he said gently, and a quizzical half-smile touched his firm mouth as he looked at her.
Her bow lips parted, and his eyes fell to their soft pink perfection. He saw the faint tremble of the full lower one and knew a hunger so violent and unexpected that it made his muscles contract all over his tall body.
Her hand went to the jacket over his broad chest, as much for support as for protest. "King," she whispered in a soft plea.
He watched her lips move and wanted to take them under his, to part their softness and ease between them, to feel her body yield to his and her arms slide around him. He wanted the softness of her breasts against his bare chest
Her eyes lifted to meet his, and the silver glitter in them made her heart stop. She hadn't dreamed of an emotion so sudden and shocking. She hadn't known that she was capable of this violence of need. She certainly hadn't expected King to react like this to her, when he'd as much as told her he was engaged to Darcy. She felt, and looked, all at sea.
"Do you want my mouth, Amelia?" he asked very softly, his eyes relentless.
The words shocked, appalled. "Mr. Culhane!" she gasped.
She started to jerk away, and his lean hand snapped around her wrist, staying her hand on his chest.
"Don't struggle, or you'll draw attention to us," he said roughly.
"What are you doing?" she asked frantically, her eyes drawing away from his finally to search the room. But, incredibly, no one was looking at them.
"Insane, is it not?" he asked in a low whisper. "We can feel the world spinning around us and not one other person seems to be aware of it."
Her shocked eyes levered back up to his, finding his steady, glittery gaze intimidating even while it excited her.
"Oh, yes," he said on a curt laugh. "I feel it, too. What a joke that is, Miss Howard, when my mind finds you nothing if not contemptible!"
She struggled for composure. She'd fallen right into his trap. It was another method of tormenting her, that was all. He'd discovered that she was vulnerable to him, and now he was going to use that against her.
"Your opinion of me will not keep me awake, sir," she said with as much pride as she could manage.
"Your hunger for me will," he shot right back. He smiled slowly, mockingly. "Have you been kissed, Amelia, by anyone who knew how?"
"You are impertinent," she bit off.
He moved imperceptibly closer, so that she could almost feel the tips of her breasts under the taffeta brushing his suit coat. "I have a knowledge of women that would shock you," he replied quietly. "And of a certainty, you would allow me to kiss you. In fact," he said, breathing, letting his gaze wander to her trembling mouth, "you ache for it!"
She had nev
er expected this kind of blatant cruelty from him. She should have known that it was inevitable. Like her father, he was adept at torture.
With a soft cry, she whirled away from him, hurting her wrist as she dragged it from the steely grip of his fingers. She made a path toward Ted, her expression more revealing than she knew in her shaken state.
"You poor thing," Ted exclaimed when she reached him. "Here, I'm sorry it took so long." He handed her the punch and watched solicitously as she held it with trembling hands to her mouth. Some spilled on her immaculate white gloves, and she knew that they would be stained. Stained, like her mind from King's harsh words, his humiliating accusations. She finished the punch and looked around for Enid.
The older woman saw and recognized her desperation. With a puzzled frown she excused herself from her friends and went to see about Amelia.
"It is rather late," Enid said gently. "Are you tired, Amelia? Would you like to leave?"
"Oh, yes, please," Amelia said shakily. "I'm sorry, Ted, I'm having a wonderful time, really I am. I'm just very weary."
"And unused to such late hours, I suspect," Enid said with a smile, although her eyes were watchful. "I'll find King and ask him to get the surrey. Will you stay with Amelia, Ted?"
"Of course!" he said at once, beaming at her.
Out of the corner of her eye, Amelia saw King speaking to his mother. He shot a cold glance in her direction and abruptly turned on his heel and left the room.
"He isn't pleased to be dragged away from Miss Valverde, I see," Ted mused. "I'm sorry, Amelia. I should have offered to drive you and Enid home"
"That's all right," she assured him. "After all, he can return if he wishes, can he not?"
"Certainly. Would you like some more punch?"
She shook her head. "I'm fine. Really."
But she wasn't. Her mind was whirling with new terrors. She didn't want to go home with King. She didn't want her father to return. She wanted to run away, fly away, escape, flee !