Sahara Splendor
Page 6
“That’s quite…magnanimous of you, sir,” Sahara whispered, widening her eyes in what she hoped was appropriate awe. He was puzzling over the new word she’d learned at Zerelda’s, still smiling, so she took a chance at a query. “And what, if anything, is Mr. Madigan to receive? I understand he’s worked for you all his life, and he certainly keeps an eye on your affairs.”
Spade chuckled, rolling his eyes. “If he’s smart, he’ll latch on to Jenny and thereby keep the ranch as his home, as well as her other properties. Perhaps our vows tomorrow will inspire him to propose.”
He launched into a glowing account of the lavish arrangements and food he’d ordered, and the illustrious guests who’d start arriving in the morning, but Sahara couldn’t listen. Bad enough that Spade cared nothing for Dan’s years of loyal service or the stripes on his broad, muscled back, but the thought of simpering, whiny Jennifer laying claim to him bothered her even more.
What has Madigan done for you? Why should you care that he gets nothing when Spade dies—that Spade has forced Dan’s hand like he’s forced yours? her conscience challenged her. Yet Dan’s tender kisses lingered in her memory, and she ached when she recalled how his intimate caress had brought her to startling, stunning life before—
“Did Bobby talk to you this afternoon?” she blurted.
He blinked. “I haven’t seen him for days. Why?”
She relaxed a little. “As you’ve said, his means aren’t the noblest. He’s never liked Madigan, and he drinks a bit; and I thought perhaps his uncomplimentary remarks influenced your bequeathing.” Then she lowered her eyes, hoping she hadn’t revealed too much. “I—I’m sorry. It’s not my place to ask about such matters.”
Spade leaned closer, clearing his throat. “Is there something I should know about? You’re to be my wife, Sahara, not merely a parlor ornament, and if you know of goings-on I should be aware of—or if there’s anything you want—I’ll certainly listen.”
Goings-on! Her brother had apparently kept his mouth shut concerning their tryst on the trail, which meant he’d use that information when it could hurt Madigan the most. Best to change the subject altogether, before this overfed bullfrog suspected she had any feelings for his manager.
Sahara gazed directly at Spade as Miss Roberts had suggested she do when she wanted his full attention. Men have to be in control, the madam had lectured, but if you can sense their soft spots, you can make your requests seem like their own ideas and get whatever you want from them. She smiled demurely and rested her hand upon his glossy desk top. “Well, there is one thing, actually. I—”
“Anything you wish, my darling. You’re far too lovely to refuse, and I can certainly afford to indulge any little whim you might have,” he said as he took her hand.
She wanted to laugh triumphantly but squeezed his pudgy fingers instead. “I—I couldn’t presume to question your judgment,” she began hesitantly, “but I’m wondering about the express business.”
Horatio chortled. “Spade Express is the biggest, most lucrative stagecoaching operation on earth,” he boasted. “Faster than Butterfield, bigger than Ben Holladay’s line, and expanding even more rapidly than Wells, Fargo. And we provide the finest coaches and the most reasonable fares and service, too,” he added. “All you need to worry your pretty little head over is how you’ll spend all those profits after I’m gone.”
“Heaven forbid you’d pass on,” she whispered with widened eyes, “but…well, the new Transcontinental Railroad has me wondering, sir. When it’s finished, people and cargo will cross the entire country so much faster, and I’m thinking the driving of that final spike may sound the death knell for overland coaching.”
He was staring at her as though she’d uttered the most unspeakable heresy, but it was no time to back down. Stroking his hairy hand, Sahara continued in a low voice. “I know precious little about your business, sir—and I’m not doubting your judgment, understand—but I suspect that if coaching comes to an end and you’re gone, Jennifer dislikes me enough to boot me out. I’ll be destitute, and I know that’s not what you’ve intended.”
Spade’s jaw twitched, and the silence in the study became stifling. Sahara licked her lips, still holding his bearlike hand, still meeting his gaze. If she’d offended him, she’d be off the ranch, destitute, before nightfall— which sounded better than marrying him—if her ploy worked. But his florid face remained unreadable.
Then he fell back against his chair, and what resembled a coughing fit turned into low, subtle laughter. “Zerelda taught you well,” he said, his eyes glittering, “but your cleverness is clearly your own. You’re absolutely right: transcontinental rails will eventually put me out of the stagecoaching business. And my daughter despises you.”
She watched him shuffle through the papers on his desk and then uncap his gilt-edged fountain pen with a flourish. As he scratched through a few lines, her heart sank: she’d gone too far. He was still going to marry her, but was removing her name from his will—which meant Horatio Spade had to be alive for her to have food, clothing, or shelter. She didn’t want him dead. She just didn’t want him.
He finished scrawling a few lines at the bottom of the page and looked up. “Why so glum, my pet? Jennifer’s name is still on the ranch and my various estates; but I’ve signed you on as heiress to my accounts and other holdings, and Spade Express and its proceeds will be yours for the duration. Few women can boast such an empire—but then, few women are smart enough to manage it. You’re even more of a prize than I bargained for, Sahara, and I promise you won’t regret becoming Mrs. Horatio P. Spade.”
They were stirring words, yet as his leer intensified she knew she was about to pay dearly for them, and for her cleverness as well.
The next morning went by in a blur of preparations, and Sahara was too stirred up to speak. Guests were arriving, the kitchen tables were overloaded with glazed hams and little cakes and dozens of specially prepared dishes—but why was this all happening? Why hadn’t Madigan brought this farce to a halt, as he’d promised?
“Hold still, chile, else I’ll poke you wid dese pins. Lord knows d’ bride cain’t have blood on ‘er white gown befo’ the weddin’!”
She glanced at the bosomy housekeeper, whose blunt brown hands were attaching her veil with the longest, most vicious hatpins she’d ever seen. “How can you make jokes, Pearly?” she muttered. “This is my funeral more than my wedding!”
“Po’ folks like us gots to take our luck as we finds it,” she replied sternly. “Mistah Spade ain’t no prize, but he’s yo’ ticket outta dem rags and calloused hands, missy. Take dat ride fo’ as far as it goes.”
Sahara sighed and looked out the window of her room again. The backyard had been transformed with streamers and bright-colored paper lanterns that bobbed in the breeze. A raised wooden platform stood in readiness for the reception dance. White cloths rippled on the waiting buffet tables, and when the minister in his black robe approached the rose-covered trellis that was to be their altar, organ music swelled over the crowd. People gathered in expectation on either side of the white carpet leading to the trellis. There was no backing out now, unless she killed herself.
After a light tapping, the door opened and Uriah White poked his head in. “My Lo-o-rdy, Pearly, we got us an angel straight from heaven here!” he said with a wide grin. “Mistah Spade’s a-waitin’. Says yo’ to hurry down now.”
Terror clutched her heart as the housekeeper’s wiry husband escorted her downstairs. Uriah looked so proud in his new suit, and there was no talking him into a last-minute escape—not when he’d been entrusted with the most important delivery of his life.
“Smile, Miss Sahara,” he whispered. “Folks is watchin’.”
“I can’t! This is absolutely—”
But when Uriah swung open the French doors leading to the back porch, and dozens of well-heeled socialites turned to witness her grand entrance, she forced herself to look radiant. By God, she would not let these people see her p
ain!
Jennifer, decked in a voluminous baby-blue gown, smirked. “You’d better smile, you little fortune hunter! If I had my way, you’d be—”
“Just get yourself down the aisle, Miss Jenny,” Bobby ordered in a terse whisper. “Cain’t let no cat fights keep your daddy waitin’, now.”
Miss Spade turned with a sniff, her raven ringlets bobbing beneath her ruffled hat. But when she realized the crowd was watching her, she proceeded down the white strip of carpet at a regal pace, strewing rose petals from the white basket on her arm.
The organ crescendoed, and her brother grinned as he offered his elbow. “Ain’t this something Sary? Ya look like a bride outta some high-toned catalog! Didn’t I tell ya—”
“I’ve got pins in this veil, long enough to poke clear through your whiskey-soaked brain,” she threatened. “This is your fault, dammit, and I’ll tolerate no more of your mouth!”
Bobby chuckled and beamed at the waiting crowd, and Sahara had no choice but to walk alongside him. Within minutes she’d belong to Horatio Spade…and there he was beside the minister, leering at her, looking like a pregnant penguin in his black suit with its white shirt and cravat. As her brother escorted her between the murmuring onlookers, she went mercifully numb, as though in a pretty nightmare that surely would end before it was too late to wake up.
But Madigan’s stricken face brought her back to reality. Ironic that he was best man in a wedding he’d promised to prevent! He looked imperially handsome in his pinstriped frock coat, but all Sahara saw were red waves of wrath that blurred her vision as she stopped beside Spade. Bobby knew better than to kiss her before he slipped into the front row. She was trapped now, standing between Jennifer Spade and her ruddy-faced father, and there was nothing she could do, unless…
“If any man knows a reason why this man and this woman should not be joined in Holy Matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace,” the preacher intoned over the crowd.
Why were only men allowed to speak now? She should blurt out her circumstances, plead with the guests to go home—and take her with them!—but the pause was filled only with the hammering of her horrified heart. She mouthed her vows mechanically, without emotion, and it was over.
“You may kiss your bride, Mr. Spade.”
Horatio grabbed her hand and covered it with a wet smack. “I’d hate to embarrass our guests by getting too carried away,” he explained with a wheezy laugh.
The crowd chuckled, and a fiddle struck up a cheery quickstep; and they were engulfed by back-slapping, cheek-kissing well-wishers. Pearly, Uriah, and the other help were carrying out the silver trays of food while the men urged Spade onto the wooden dais so that they could take their turns with his bride after he’d led the first dance. Sahara had never felt more mortified in her life.
“You’re a dream come true, darling,” Horatio was whispering. He held her against his protruding belly, his hand scorching her through the back of her lace dress. “I was too immature to enjoy my first wedding all those years ago, but what a day this has been! And what a night we’ll have, my desert flower!”
She wanted to throw up, but her stomach was too empty to oblige her. As Spade turned her in time to the waltz, she saw men ladling up punch and wished she could drown herself in it. And there was Madigan, offering Miss Jenny a cup of the cool refreshment, and she was laughing, hanging all over him as though she expected it to be quite a night for herself, as well.
Why were men such damn traitors? Her father had abandoned them, her brother had gambled her away, and Dan Madigan’s promises were every bit as empty as theirs. The only thing that kept her from yelling obscenities at him was the fact that one man after another was guiding her around the wooden dance floor.
She smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it…let herself be led by tall, graceful partners who smelled more strongly of whiskey and sweat as the hours passed and the Japanese lanterns winked in the deepening dusk. Perhaps this sense of detached numbness would carry her through the horrors that awaited her in Spade’s bedroom…
And then she realized it was Madigan holding her now, guiding her through the chattering crowd away from the dais. “You must be dry as a bone, honey, and you haven’t had a bite all day,” he was saying in a worried voice. “It’s a wonder you’re still on your feet. Here—take a load off.”
Sahara watched him remove his frock coat and spread it on the ground. They were in a small grove of trees, away from the uproar of the party, and it wasn’t until he was sitting her down that she realized how badly she needed to. With a tight smile he gestured for her to stay put, and then he hurried to the buffet tables.
She should be calling him every crude name she knew, but here he came with a plate piled with food and a cup of punch so cold it was beaded with moisture. Dan pressed the glass to her cheek, making her shiver with the intense pleasure of it.
“Now eat something before you guzzle this punch,” he instructed. “Your brother’s been adding whiskey to it, and you’ll keel flat over backward.”
“Sounds wonderful,” she sighed, and then she gulped deeply, grateful for the stinging sweetness that rushed down her parched throat.
Madigan gazed sadly at her. Her lace veil was askew, so he carefully removed its pins, which sent her hair tumbling in a red-gold mass around her shoulders. Her delicate white dress looked like spun sugar, and as she watched him blankly, he thought of a doll’s sweet, vacuous face—breathtakingly pretty, but unfeeling, unreal. If Sahara were his bride, she’d be laughing and cavorting among their friends until they shared the splendor of his bed in that first blissful coming together—
But she was Sahara Spade now. And he was to blame.
He turned and began to unbutton her high, white shoes. “Sahara, I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I argued all morning—Jenny was fighting him, too—but Spade threatened to…take you, in front of the guests, if we kept interfering. Believe me, I haven’t given up on getting you out of here before…”
She let her empty punch cup drop and closed her eyes. Her face ached from forcing a smile all day, and it was Madigan’s low, soothing tone she heard rather than his words. He was easing her shoes off her throbbing feet, and as the liquor’s dizzying warmth spread through her tired limbs, she eased back onto her elbows. A mouthful of salty-sweet ham revived her further, and she found herself watching Dan’s white shirt strain against his shoulders as he tossed her shoes aside to massage her feet.
“Madigan, do you always carry a buttonhook?”
He turned, relieved to see that the hatred had drained from her face. On an impulse, he ran the slender instrument down her nose. “As you can see, it comes in handy on occasion.”
Sahara giggled, well aware that any number of women before her had succumbed to his suave tricks, and that his tender caress on her feet was feeling far too good, and that she was suddenly skunk-drunk. Dan was laughing with her, the nicest sound she’d heard all day, and as his hair slipped down over one brow and his dark eyes sparkled, she wished desperately that it was his ring on her finger and their reception they’d slipped away from. Before she could catch herself, she whispered, “You haven’t kissed the bride yet, Mr. Madigan.”
He hesitated. The music sounded distant, and the party was in full swing; but if Spade realized his bride and his accountant were both missing—
“An unpardonable oversight on my part, Sahara,” he murmured. “Can you forgive me?”
His shadowy eyes held her captive, and there was no escaping his meaning: a kiss meant she forgave him for the mess she was in as much as for overlooking his rights as best man. She nodded slowly, her breath catching in her throat as Dan eased toward her.
His lips felt like firm, warm satin gliding over hers, and as Sahara drifted back onto his coat, she knew instinctively where this would lead—just as Madigan did—and she was too enthralled to care. He was stretching out alongside her, pressing his mouth into hers again and again, holding her head between his hands as though she were fragi
le and priceless.
A deep desire gnawed at her, a hunger that had nothing to do with food. Sahara rubbed against him, answering his advances with a wantonness she never knew she possessed. She reached for the buttons on his shirt and heard him moan.
“Honey, we’re jumping out of the frying pan into the fire if we—”
“I don’t care!” she blurted. “You feel too good to—if you can’t get me out of this godforsaken marriage, the least you can do is show me how a real man’s supposed to feel! Otherwise, I may never know!”
Dan heard the liquor in her voice and knew he should stand up before his own whiskey answered such an outrageous suggestion. But she was kissing him again, draping a leg over him to pull him closer. The rustle of her petticoats whispered his name, and her sweet, silken lips hushed all the reasons they should be straightening their clothes, returning to the reception. She felt warm and vibrant in his arms, all traces of her woodenness gone now.
Sahara raised up suddenly. “Dan, that’s it! If you make love to me, Spade has to let me go! No man would tolerate—”
“You’re trying to get us both killed, young lady,” he insisted, gently pushing her away.
“But you promised! You said you’d find me a way out, and—”
“All right then, I’ll go saddle a couple horses,” he proposed, “and we’ll ride off before anyone misses us. There’ll be plenty of time to make love the way I want to, after we’re off the ranch.”
“There’s time now! Spade’s too busy congratulating himself in front of his friends to come looking for us.” Her idea was sheer craziness, spurred on by the spiked punch, but never had she felt so exhilarated. Her hand found the smooth, bare skin beneath Dan’s starched shirt, and she closed her eyes with the wonder of it.
Sahara’s touch was his undoing. He swung up to kiss her soundly, determined to dash for the stables—until she wound her arms around him and slipped her tongue between his teeth. “Honey, please let me—”