Maverick Heart

by Joan Johnston

  Verity heard the underlying pain that caused the sarcasm. She shook her head and whispered, “I couldn’t.”

  “Tell him whatever you want,” Miles said brusquely. “Make up something. You’re good at it.”

  He didn’t wait to hear her retort. He was gone from the room before she could even think of one.

  13

  Miles shook Verity awake. “Rand’s fever is worse. Unless we can get it down, he’s going to die.”

  “Tell me what to do.”

  Miles wasn’t sure what he had expected—that Verity might fall into a swoon or shriek and tear at her hair—but he was frankly surprised by her calm, rational response.

  He had spent an uncomfortable night sitting in the ladderback chair beside Rand, his legs stretched out in front of him, his ankles resting on the foot of the bed. He had listened to the house creak and settle as the wind blew through the eaves and swirled up from the knotholes in the wooden floor. The past few difficult days had taken their toll, and he had fallen asleep. He had woken only when the pink light of dawn seeped through his eyelids.

  He felt guilty for not keeping a closer watch on his son. Regrets weren’t going to help now, just fast, efficient action.

  “You can help me sponge him down,” Miles said. “Maybe we can cool him off that way.” It was a remedy for fever that had worked in the past.

  Verity eased her legs over the edge of the bed, but even that small movement caused her to hiss with pain. She was stripped to her chemise and pantalets and had nothing else to put on.

  “Do you have a shirt I can use to cover myself?” she asked.

  Miles got a worn chambray shirt from his wardrobe and watched while she put it on and buttoned it. It irked him that as angry as he was with her, his body still responded to the feminine swell of her breasts beneath the masculine material.

  “Are you sure you ought to be out of bed?” he said. “Can you even walk?”

  “I’ll crawl, if I have to, but I’m getting out of this bed.”

  Miles helped Verity onto her feet, being careful to keep her legs from brushing against the sheets. “Is that better?”

  She tested her weight on her legs. “Yes. Thanks.”

  Miles picked up a kerosene lantern from a table beside the bed and led the way into the other room. The added light woke Freddy, who had gone to sleep on a pallet Miles had rigged for her in front of the fireplace. He had been lucky to get her to lie down at all. She had wanted to stand vigil over Rand with him. She was still completely dressed in her rumpled green riding habit. Her only concession had been to remove her calfskin boots.

  It dawned on him that if Rand survived, he would marry this woman. Freddy would become his daughter-in-law. One look at her hands, and he knew she hadn’t done a lick of work in her lifetime. As the daughter of a duke, she had most certainly been pampered, most likely spoiled rotten. Her behavior in the incident with the bear proved she didn’t have a particle of sense.

  But he couldn’t deny her beauty. He had seen how Tom was smitten with her. That tumbled mane of auburn hair, her astonishing, long-lashed green eyes and pouty-looking, bowed lips, all set in a porcelain, heart-shaped face, would turn any man’s head for a second look. But beauty didn’t count for much in a land like this.

  The fact she had sat for hours by Rand’s side and stared at the ugly, oozing wound on his shoulder without fleeing or fainting dead away showed a stronger stomach than he had thought any gently bred English lady possessed.

  The fact Freddy had climbed down from the safety of a tree in an attempt to rescue Rand spoke of extraordinary courage. It wasn’t a bad trait for a man to look for in the mother of his sons. Unless you considered the impossible odds she had faced. That made her behavior reckless, perhaps even stupid.

  He wondered if there was any more to Lady Winnifred Worth than surface beauty and a strong stomach and a penchant for danger. Had his son sought out a woman of substance for his wife? Or had he merely chosen for beauty and rank and fortune?

  He decided to reserve judgment on the girl. In a land like this, there were plenty of opportunities to test a person’s mettle. The weak ones didn’t survive. The cowardly ones ran. Only the strongest, the sturdiest, the bravest stayed to carve a life in the wilderness.

  Freddy raised herself on one elbow. “Is Rand all right?”

  “His fever’s worse,” Miles answered. “We’re going to sponge him with cool water to try to bring it down.”

  Freddy shoved the quilt out of her way and began drawing on her boots. “What can I do to help?”

  Verity’s heart went out to the young woman sitting on a makeshift pallet on the hard floor. She had also been observing Freddy, whose face was half hidden in shadows, half lit by the soft pink light of dawn. She saw someone who, three mornings ago, had been a naive seventeen-year-old, cosseted and protected from such vulgar horrors as a man’s naked chest.

  The Freddy who scrambled to her feet and stood waiting for a word from her had serious green eyes that had aged a lifetime in a few days. It seemed ridiculous to treat her like the child-woman she had been before she set out on this journey.

  “Get another cloth and a bowl of water. You can work on Rand’s shoulders and chest, while I do his legs.” Verity primed the pump and ice-cold water began gushing into the tin bowl she had set in the sink.

  “What do you want me to do?” Miles said.

  “You can refill our bowls, so we’re always using cool water.”

  Verity was already heading back to the bedroom when she realized she needed more light. “Miles? The lantern.”

  He lit the lamp on the kitchen table to provide light in the main room until the sun was fully up, then led the way back to the bedroom. He set the lantern back on the table beside Rand, so Verity and Freddy would be able to see what they were doing.

  Before they let Freddy into the bedroom, Miles and Verity stripped Rand completely and rearranged the sheet over him so his chest and legs were exposed, but he was still decently covered.

  “You can come in now, Freddy,” Verity called when they were done.

  Miles and Verity exchanged a poignant look as Freddy’s eyes sought out Rand.

  Will she be able to stay the distance? Miles wondered.

  Is she going to break Rand’s heart? Verity wondered.

  Freddy crossed to Verity’s side, took the cloth Verity handed to her, dipped it in the cold water, and wrung it out. Her hands were trembling as she brushed the cloth across Rand’s shoulder.

  Miles and Verity caught each other’s eyes again. She had passed the first test. There would be others. All they could do was wait and see. There was no more time for thinking, for worrying, for wondering. They were too busy ministering to Rand.

  Verity stood at the foot of the bed and began the endless chore of sponging Rand’s fiery skin with cool water, repeating the process again and again. It wasn’t long before the mattress beneath him was soaked. She and Miles decided the wet mattress couldn’t hurt because the dampness beneath Rand also helped cool his flesh.

  None of them was sure of the efficacy of the treatment. Rand became restless, struggling against the hands that attended him.

  “Rand,” Verity said. “Please, be still. You’re going to be all right. Everything will be all right.”

  He quieted for a while, but moments later cried, “Freddy! Freddy!”

  Freddy dropped the cloth she held and reached for Rand’s flailing hands. “I’m here, Rand. I’m right here.”

  “Dead,” he muttered. Tears leaked from his closed eyes. “Bear … too late.”

  Freddy turned stricken eyes to Verity. “He seems to think the bear killed me. He doesn’t remember we were rescued. He’s suffering, Lady Talbot. What can I do?”

  Verity didn’t correct the girl’s mode of address. Her marriage to Miles seemed to have happened in another lifetime. She met Miles’s eyes as he entered the room with another bowl of water.

  “He’s rambling, muttering nonsense. H
e doesn’t seem to remember he and Freddy were saved from the bear,” she told him.

  “It’s the fever,” Miles said. “Keep talking to him, Freddy. Perhaps your voice will soothe him.”

  Freddy edged onto the bed and took one of Rand’s hands in both of her own. “I’m here, Rand. We’re both safe. The bear ran away. The shots scared him away. Don’t you remember?”

  “Freddy,” he moaned.

  “I’m safe, Rand. I’m alive.”

  Freddy turned beseeching eyes first to Verity and then to Miles. “He’s still crying.”

  “Keep talking,” Miles ordered. “Just keep talking.” He had taken Freddy’s job sponging off Rand’s shoulders and chest. Rand’s hallucinations meant the fever was worse. Miles’s heart jumped to his throat and hammered there.

  Don’t die, he pleaded. I want to get to know you. I want a chance to be your father.

  Freddy bent close to Rand’s ear to speak in whispers that couldn’t be heard by Miles and Verity. “It’s been quite an adventure, hasn’t it, Rand? Who would ever have thought we would be captured by Indians? Or chased by a bear? My friends won’t believe me when I tell them everything that’s happened. Neither will my parents.

  “They must be terribly worried about me, Rand. I’m going to have to write them soon and tell them I’m well. They’ll be surprised that we’re not married. I’ve been thinking about what you said, Rand. Not that I think anyone in England would ever hear the story of what happened to us, but … I have … feelings for you I don’t quite understand …”

  She talked to him for hours, while his parents kept applying the cooling water to his skin. At last he seemed more quiet. She kept murmuring to him, begging him to open his eyes, to please wake up.

  Freddy gave a small cry of surprise when Rand’s eyes actually opened. She held her breath as they closed, then blinked open again. “Rand?”

  He turned his head to look at her. His eyes seemed unfocused at first. “Freddy?” he rasped.

  She jumped to her feet, startled by the sound of his voice. “Lady Talbot! Mr. Broderick! Rand’s awake. He knows me!”

  Rand looked around him, obviously confused and disoriented. “Where am I?” He tried weakly, futilely, to rearrange the sheet to cover himself better. “Get out!” he said to Freddy. “Mother, get her out!”

  “But, Rand—” Freddy protested.

  Verity put an arm around Freddy’s shoulders and began ushering her from the room. “I think we should leave Rand alone for a little while.”

  “But, Rand—” Freddy cried beseechingly.

  “Get out!” he shouted. It came out as more of a croak.

  Freddy hadn’t shed a tear through all that had happened, but a sob, part relief, part confusion, part fatigue, broke free.

  “Go ahead and cry, Freddy,” Verity said as she closed the bedroom door behind them and headed to the closest chairs at the kitchen table. “I feel like having a good cry myself.”

  Rand was irritated and irritable. He was still trying to cover his nakedness, but his hands wouldn’t obey his commands. He had woken to find himself lying in bed stark naked in a room populated by his fiancée and his mother and a stranger. When the stranger began to help him with the sheets, he muttered, “I can do it myself.”

  “Another day, maybe. Right now you’re weak as a two-day-old kitten. Lie back, and let me do it.”

  Rand let his hands collapse at his sides and stared balefully at the man who straightened the sheet to cover him from toes to chest.

  “Where am I?” he asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.

  “The Muleshoe Ranch.”

  His brow furrowed. “My mother’s place.”

  “Mine,” Miles said in a soft voice.

  The grooves in Rand’s forehead deepened. “Grimes said the Muleshoe already belonged to somebody else. I was sure he had to be wrong.”

  “It’s a long story. Are you sure you want to hear it now?”

  “I need to know what’s going on,” Rand said.

  “The man who sold Chester Talbot this land sold it to me first. Your mother’s title to the Muleshoe was never valid.”

  A myriad of chaotic emotions churned through Rand. Distress, disappointment, disgust. He stared at the man across from him, realizing who he must be, knowing the answer to the question he was about to ask, but needing to hear it spoken aloud. “Who are you?”

  “Miles Broderick. I’m … an acquaintance of your mother’s.”

  “Grimes said you married my mother.” It was an accusation.

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  After a short hesitation he said, “Because the ranch your mother came here to claim, the Muleshoe, belongs to me. She needed a place to live. I wanted a wife.” He lifted a shoulder in what started as a shrug but ended before it was complete. “So we got married.”

  Rand’s lips pressed flat. His expression turned ugly. “In other words, you blackmailed her into marrying you.”

  “She could have refused.”

  Tension simmered between them.

  I know who you are, Rand thought. But he didn’t say the words. Couldn’t say them. His father—Chester Talbot, he corrected himself—had told him everything on his deathbed.

  “You already know you’re not my son,” Chester had rasped past the death rattle in his chest.

  “Yes, I know,” Rand had said, his heart in his eyes, a lump in his throat. Chester had told him that much of the truth three years before. He was there to hear the rest of it. “What is my father’s name, sir?” he had asked.

  “Miles Broderick is the blackguard who raped your mother and abandoned her. Miles Broderick, Viscount Linden, is your father.”

  Chester had warned him not to confront his mother. “She will lie to you, as she did to me. For your own good, of course. She will not want to take the risk that Broderick may kill you in a duel. He is the villain in all of this. I have always hated him. It will be up to you—if he ever sets foot in London again—to avenge your mother’s honor.”

  It had been awful to know who has father was, to realize he came from such bad blood, and to still feel curious about the man. One of the reasons Rand had been so glad to come to Wyoming was because he had learned his father was here, and he had wanted to find him and punish him for all the hurt and harm he had caused.

  Miles Broderick had proved himself the villain Talbot had named him. Hadn’t Broderick forced his mother into marriage? Hadn’t he somehow stolen the Muleshoe Ranch, which should have been his mother’s home, away from her? As soon as he was well enough, Rand decided, he would take the steps necessary to carry out the duty laid on him by a dying man.

  He would have to avenge his mother’s honor. He would have to kill Miles Broderick.

  Another thought rose, one he found both alarming and intriguing. Does Broderick intend to claim me as his son? His face set grimly. Miles Broderick will rue the day he tries to be my father. I don’t have a father. I am that ugly name I was taunted with as a child, that I fought with my fists to deny. I am the bastard they accused me of being.

  His eyes fell closed, and he sighed in exhaustion. Moments later, he was asleep.

  Miles checked to make sure Rand was merely sleeping and that the fever had not returned, but his son was breathing deeply, evenly, and without difficulty. Miles laid his hand on Rand’s forehead. His skin felt normal, cool in comparison to the previous fiery heat during the worst of the fever.

  A sick feeling of dread churned Miles’s stomach. He had felt the animosity rolling off his son in waves. It was a fair guess that Randal Talbot hated his guts. What had Chester told him? What had he done to poison his son’s mind against him?

  You won’t win, Chester. He’s my son. I’ll find a way to reach him. I’ll find a way to undo the damage you’ve done.

  A swell of aching tenderness rose within him as he gazed at his son. Here was flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. Was it too late to be a part of his son’s life? Would Rand, when he knew
the truth about his birth—that his parents had been desperately in love with each other when he was conceived—still feel enmity toward Miles for what had been the tragic folly of a young couple in love? Would Rand understand why Miles had ruined Chester? Would he blame Miles for the theft of his inheritance?

  Miles realized he was going to have to make some decisions, and soon, about whether—and what—to tell Rand about himself.

  “Is he asleep?”

  Miles glanced up and saw Verity in the doorway. “Yes. The fever’s broken.”

  “Freddy is settled again. The poor girl was exhausted.” She put her hands to the small of her back and arched in the age-old way a woman does when she has labored long and hard.

  “You look exhausted, too.”

  Verity sat on the edge of the bed, but Miles couldn’t make himself go to her even though he could see the difficulty she was having. She eased back, trying to keep her knees bent so her burned calves wouldn’t come in contact with anything.

  When she cried out with pain, Miles could keep his distance no longer. She wasn’t the only one to blame for the tragedy that had occurred. He had to accept at least some of the responsibility. Now that his initial shock and anger had passed, he realized it was her fear of just such a virulent response from him that had kept her from telling him sooner that Rand was his son—even though she must have known he would figure out the truth the instant he laid eyes on him.

  “Sit down, Miles,” she said, patting the bed beside her.

  He sat down uncomfortably in the small space.

  “Did you talk with Rand?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Rand doesn’t approve of our marriage.”

  “That was to be expected,” she said.

  He felt an ache in his throat. “He hates me, Verity. Chester must have said something, lied to him about me.”

  “I was afraid of that,” she murmured. She put a hand on his arm. “All Rand has to do is spend time with you, and he’ll see what a good man you are, Miles.”

  He shook his head. “It can’t be that easy.”