by Diana Palmer
He sat down on the edge of the bed, his hand reaching out to touch the disheveled fall of blond hair that lay unruly on her pale cheek.
"Forgive me, Amelia," he said into the silence. His silver eyes mirrored his guilt and horror. "I did not know."
But she didn't answer. She remained still and silent, and while he sat with her the spectre of her gentle smile haunted him unendurably. She had been so tender, so giving. Her body, this same broken thing that was so unmoving under the covers, had been all his. Her mouth had pleaded for his, her arms had held him and cradled him. She had been everything he'd ever wanted a woman to be, and he had repaid that loving generosity with treason. Betrayal. His eyes closed. In his mind, he could see that double belt in Hartwell's hand being brought down mercilessly on Amelia's soft, bare back. How could he do that to her? How could he!
All King had wanted was for Hartwell to know that Amelia couldn't marry Alan, and why. He should never have done it. He should have behaved like a gentleman. But when he thought of Amelia married to Alan, he could not contain himself. He simply went crazy with fear. Amelia in his house, married to his brother. It would have been impossible.
He paced the room, trying to fight the images. Amelia in his arms. Amelia begging for his kisses. Amelia, tears on her cheeks as he shamed her. Amelia, cowering under the whip of her father's belt while the blood flowed from her !
He cried out, his hands gripping the windowsill until the knuckles went white. He couldn't live with it, he couldn't!
Vaguely he was aware of the front door opening and footsteps coming up the stairs. He turned just as the bedroom door opened and his mother came in with Alan and Brant.
Alan was subdued, too, all the venom gone out of him. It was like a funeral parlor, King thought absently. Everyone was so quiet, afraid to move too much or speak too loudly.
"Has she come to herself at all?" Enid asked.
King shook his head. His face was heavily lined, his hair mussed where his fingers had run through it time and time again. He looked so unlike his usual vital self that Enid didn't say the words that had been sitting on her tongue all the way into town.
"Tricky things, concussions," Brant said quietly.
"She's got spunk," Alan replied, his eyes on her. "She'll come through it."
King wasn't inclined to agree. She had more courage than he'd dreamed, but he'd given her too much reason to want to die. He'd shamed and disgraced her, and such a woman would have a hard time living with the way she'd yielded to him. At least he hadn't told anyone the truth of how far it had gone. He had given only the impression that Amelia had been prepared to sport with him, not that she in fact had. But even that insinuation was enough to ruin her.
Amelia would know and remember every detail. She'd think of herself as a fallen woman, and she might not want to live.
His face clenched with the thought. Could someone will herself to die? Was it possible? What if she did?
A soft hand shook him. "That won't help," Enid said firmly. "Go and make some coffee."
He hesitated, his silver eyes anguished on Amelia's face.
"Please," his mother emphasized.
"Very well."
He left, reluctantly, and started a fire in the stove. It was like a wake, he thought. A damned wake!
Brant came in while he was filling the coffeepot and sat down at the small kitchen table. "Enid was looking for some clothing in her chifforobe," he remarked quietly. "She found a bundle of books, hidden there probably to keep her father from knowing she had them."
"Dime novels?" King asked without malice.
"Plato, in the original Greek," his father replied, shocking him. "French poetry. Latin hymns. Apparently Quinn has been teaching her. They were imprinted with his name. But there were notations in the columns, not in Quinn's handwriting. She seems to be quite well read."
King pulled two mugs from the china cabinet and put them on the table. His very posture was defeated. "She told me nothing," he said.
"She was probably afraid to," Brant replied. "She wouldn't have trusted you not to tell her father. I can understand now why she found Alan such good company. He was the exact antithesis of her father."
"Yes." That had occurred to King, too. A lot of things had occurred to him.
"Since Quinn lives in barracks, she will have no place to go. Your mother and I want to take her back to Latigo."
"Have you sent for Quinn?" King asked suddenly.
"We sent word to the Ranger post at Alpine, yes." His eyes narrowed worriedly. "You are good friends, but he will not be able to justify the shame that you have caused Amelia, to say nothing of inciting her father to violence against her."
"Do you think I can justify it to myself?" King asked quietly. He moved the boiling coffee to another part of the stove.
"Why?" Brant asked fiercely."
"I was saving my brother from her," he replied. He lifted the coffeepot with a cloth and poured the black liquid into two mugs on the table. "I wanted someone more learned and spirited for Alan."
"Alan has no need of a spirited woman," Brant said, his voice very low. "He is a gentle man. A gentle woman would suit him very well." His dark eyes narrowed. "You wanted her for yourself."
King's hand was momentarily unsteady. He finished filling the mugs and replaced the coffeepot on the stove with slow deliberation. "That does not change the fact that she is ill suited to life on a ranch." He turned, his face pale but composed. "I have chosen a wife with my mind, not my heart. I will marry Darcy, when I marry."
He was totally discounting the fact that he might have made Amelia pregnant during that feverish interlude in his bed. He didn't dare speak of it, even to his father. Better to ignore the fact and hope, pray, that when Amelia recovered, there were no unwanted consequences of his folly. He would be honor-bound to marry her in such a case, and it was the last thing he wanted. He was already vulnerable to her physically. He wanted no more weaknesses to battle. She would recover, and he would find a way to help her go back East to live.
"You must live your life as you see fit," Brant said wearily. "But I would not have Darcy were she the last marriageable woman in Texas."
"As you said, it is my affair."
"Yes."
Brant took a cup of coffee to Enid and Alan and then came back for his own. King didn't go back into the bedroom. He went outside to smoke a cigar.
Alan joined him shortly afterward.
"She's regained consciousness," Alan said quietly.
"Did she speak?" King asked, turning his head toward his brother to listen intently.
"Only to groan. Her wounds are painful."
"Dr. Vasquez promised to return soon. Once he does, Mother can mix some of the sedative that Dr. Vasquez left for her, and perhaps she will go back to sleep," King replied.
Alan nodded. He leaned back against one of the posts, his face solemn. "Despite all these precautions, it is inevitable that there will be gossip. It is as well that we are taking her to Latigo to recover."
King didn't reply. He was thinking about how he was going to bear having the evidence of his cruelty exposed to him day after day.
"I intend to marry her," Alan said suddenly.
King whirled and started to speak, but his brother held up a hand and dared him to.
"I shall marry her," the younger man said again, with some of King's own spirit. "You have disgraced her and the rest of us. I will not allow you to drive her to suicide."
"Suicide !"
"King," Alan said heavily, "did you not notice the lack of evidence that she even tried to defend herself? There are no marks at all on her forearms or her hands, as there would be if she had attempted to shield herself from the blows."
King felt sick all over. He took a deep draw from the cigar, almost smothering himself.
"She knew that her father would not spare her. Perhaps she even hoped that he might inflict enough damage to kill her."
King groaned out loud. The possibilities wer
e tearing at his conscience like knives.
"The gossip will only bring it back. Despite the relative innocence of the situation between you and she." Alan added in blissful ignorance of the true circumstances, "the sordid things that people will say will make her life here hell. At least I can offer her the protection of my name."
"She does not love you," King said harshly.
"Do you think she loves you?" came the short reply, and a coldly mocking smile from Alan's lips to accompany it. "Even if she had loved you before, and I think this possible, she will hate you now."
King was very still. "What do you mean, you think she loved me?"
"You were blind, were you not?" He folded his arms across his chest. "She confessed to Quinn once that she would swoon if you ever smiled at her, as you smiled so easily at every other woman. She dressed to attract your attention, but you never looked at her. And just lately, whenever she was at Latigo, she would shake as if with a fever when you came close. Her eyes were always on you. It hurts her to see you with Darcy, and Darcy knew and made it worse. She taunted Amelia for her feelings, which were all too evident to everyone except you."
Of all the revelations that had come out of the terrible day, this had surely to be the worst. King had refused to entertain any thoughts about Amelia's reasons for giving in to him, for allowing him to possess her.
Now, he was faced with the only true reason she could have had: that she loved him. It was a sobering, sickening thought to have treated her as he had when she cared for him. It had been novelty enough to have a woman want him even physically. He was too aware of his lack of conventional male looks, defensive about his being wanted only for his wealth. Amelia had wanted him because she loved him, and he hadn't allowed himself to admit it. Now, as Alan said, it was a moot point. Because whatever Amelia had felt for him before, she would certainly hate him now.
He threw the cigar down into the dust and stared at the glowing orange tip with eyes that hardly saw.
"You couldn't help your lack of feelings for her," Alan said to placate him. "I didn't mean to taunt you with something you can't help. But you must realize that Amelia is dear to me. I care for her, as I would a beloved sister."
"That will not be enough," King said through his teeth.
"It will be. She and I have many things in common. We will have a pleasant life together, and, eventually, children will bond us even closer."
King wanted to tell his brother the truth then: that a child was already possible even if not probable. But he couldn't bring himself to make that damning confession on the heels of what he'd already done to Amelia. Besides, he thought, a child was really a very distant possibility. It had been quick and not at all pleasurable on her part at the last, did that not guarantee that there would be no issue from the coupling? He sighed. He wished that he knew more about the mechanics of reproduction. He had to believe that Amelia would be spared that terrible consequence. But to let Alan marry her and not know
"Alan," he began slowly, reluctantly.
"Alan! King! She's awakening!" Enid called softly from the doorway.
The two men followed their mother upstairs, one with hope, the other with anguish.
Brant was standing by the bed, looking oddly perturbed and preoccupied. He glanced at his sons as if to warn them of something.
King reached her side first. He had to know. If she hated him, he had to see it in her eyes, to take his medicine like a man.
"Amelia?" he said softly, wincing at the pain in that soft, gentle face, in those huge, soulful brown eyes.
She blinked once. Twice. "My back is very sore," she said with some confusion. "It is bandaged. Why?"
"You have had a mishap," King began. "Amelia"
She stared at him with apprehension and curiosity. He stirred something in her that was frightening. But her eyes were very soft, and his knees went weak at the lack of hatred in her face. He felt like dancing around the room, all his fears and misgivings routed in the wonder of her reaction to him. She couldn't hate him and look at him like that, even if there was a little apprehension in her face. His breath caught in his chest, and he was astonished by the surge of joy he felt. It was like nothing he'd ever experienced in his life, all because Amelia wasn't hating him. She was so beautiful, he thought dizzily.
"May I ask a question?" she ventured.
"Of course," he said huskily. "Anything!"
She hesitated. "Who are you?" she asked softly.
Chapter Twelve
» ^ «
Quinn had made camp midway between Del Rio and Juarez, beside a small stream in a canyon. The girl was quiet and unresponsive, and he wondered if she was brooding about what he'd shared with her or about the man who'd put her in such a circumstance.
"You're very quiet," he remarked as he worked the tin opener on cans of beans and peaches. The beans he poured into the small black frying pan he carried. The peaches he left until the beans were hot. There was a little hardtack as well. He turned that into the pan with the beans to flavor them. "Are you hungry?"
" Sí , I think so," she replied. She pulled the serape he'd given her closer around her slender body. "I was thinking about Manolito and what my papa will do to him when he knows what has happened. I think he will slit Manolito's throat!"
"What does your papa do?" he asked. "Is he a campesino or a haciendado ?"
She laughed. "He is a bandido ," she said.
He started, and she laughed even more. "Ah, that shocks you, señor ," she said, nodding. "He will not harm you. In fact, he will be most grateful to you for rescuing me from that foul place. Although," she added worriedly, "you must never tell him what we did together. He would it would hurt him."
"I know. It hurts me," he said heavily. "I have never been with an unwilling woman. I had no idea that you weren't what you seemed to be, or that you had been drugged. I deeply regret it."
"And I," she said. "But all the wishes in the world will not undo it. The Blessed Virgin will forgive us, señor . It was Manolito's treachery which will be punished." She crossed herself.
He ran a hand through his thick blond hair and studied her quietly. "Tell me about your papa, Rodriguez?" he asked, deliberately careless.
"He is a good man, señor ," she said solemnly. "It is not true, many of the things people say of him. He takes care of our people. He feeds and clothes the poor and provides medicines for the sick and milk for the babies. The government lets us starve, and the haciendados have no love for us. If it were not for Papa and his brothers, our pueblo would be a place of the dead already."
He stirred the beans. In his pocket, the five-pointed star was uncomfortable. "How did you come to be his daughter?"
"My real father died when I was ten years old," she said, wrapping the serape closer. "I had three little brothers, and my mama was alone. She married again, because there was no money and she had a farm that she could not manage by herself. But the man she married was an animal," she said coldly. "He made my brothers and me into slaves, to do the chores and work on the farm from dawn until dusk. He starved us and beat us, and my littlest brother died. My mama cried, but she did not send him away. And he noticed me." She looked up. "You understand? He noticed me in a way that was not proper."
"I understand," he said gruffly, because he could imagine what she meant, very well.
She flushed. "He had only just sold some livestock and had a little money. He got drunk in the town and bragged of it before he came home. There were some very bad men in the town. They decided to raid the farm and take the money." Her eyes were wistful. "The barn was set alight by these men, and my mama and my oldest brother were killed." She took a deep breath. "These men decided that I would be as much a treasure as the horses they took from my stepfather. They threw me onto a horse and took me away. They took my little brother, also.
"But Rodriguez heard of what these men were doing and knew that he would be blamed for it, because the burning of the barn was his, how do you say, his trademark
. So he set out on their trail and caught up with them when they tried to make the safety of the mountains. He hunted them down and killed them."
"Them, and not you," Quinn remarked.
"Not me. I was crying for my mama and worried about my little brother and what would become of him. This big, stocky Mexican man in a wide-brimmed sombrero came over to me, his spurs jingling in the night with the camp fire behind him making him into a giant. He needed a shave, and his face was heavy, and he had this enormous mustache." She smiled. "But he had the kindest eyes I had ever seen, señor . He sat down beside me and held my hand and began talking to me in the Spanish language. I understood not one word ninguna una palabra of what he said. But he sounded so kind. And when I began to cry again, he cradled me in his arms and I wept, there in that warm prison which smelled of horse and smoke. Later, when I was calm, he brought a man to me who could speak a little English. He explained that I was not to be harmed and that they were going to take me home with them and take care of me, and my little brother, also. I did really cry then, señor , because of what I thought would happen to me when they did."
"Did you tell them what your stepfather was like?" he asked.
She nodded. "It was embarrassing for me, but I told them everything. Rodriguez's eyesI have never seen eyes burn like that! He turned to his men and said something, I have only been able to guess at what. Then he had the man tell me that I would be taken to Malasuerte, in Sonora, and that I would become his daughter and that no hurt would ever be done to me again. I tried to tell him about my small brother. He patted my hand and told me to go to sleep, that all would be well."
She moved closer to the fire. "I did sleep. When I awoke, my brother was curled up beside me." She laughed softly. "It was like a miracle! I could not believe my good fortune. I was in the company of bandits, and I had never been so safe, nor had my little brother. " She paused. "There is not much more to tell. My stepfather was found dead, along with my mother. I never asked what circumstances led to this, and I do not want to know. I mourned my mother, you understand. But from that day, Rodriguez was my father. He has taken care of my brother and me, and although we have been very poor, we have been loved and wanted and needed." She looked at him across the camp fire, her face soft with love. "Rodriguez is Papa, not only to us, but to everyone. That is what we call him. Papa. Viejo ."