Amelia (26 page)

Quinn was shocked. He started to take her up on that slander and then thought better of it. He needed to find out what had happened before he started verbally flaying people. He thanked her stiffly and went to the house. It was locked. Presumably Amelia would have the key. He traded horses at the livery stable and rode out for Latigo. His grief at losing his father was equaled by his fear for Amelia's reputation and her sanity. She was a gentle, sweet girl. How would she handle the grief? And what in God's name did King have to do with Amelia that could cause gossip all over El Paso? For heaven's sake, King hated her!

 

King drove Amelia to the cemetery outside town, where her father had been buried. There was an oblong mound of dirt and a placard stuck into the ground with his name, age, place of birth, and date of death on it.

Until she saw it, Amelia hadn't been able to believe that he was actually dead. Now it hit her all at once, and she began to cry.

King pulled her into his arms and held her while the tears came, rocking her gently while the wind blew around them. The horse grazed on the thin vegetation, carelessly tossing his mane while he chewed and bugs bit him. It was green here. There were two mesquite trees putting out leaves, their long fronds flowing like green beards in the breeze. King found himself thinking that he wouldn't mind spending eternity here, in this quiet, peaceful place.

Finally the tears dwindled, and Amelia stood quiet in his arms, her lacy handkerchief pressed to her mouth and red nose. She sniffed. "King?"

"Hmmm?"

"Tell me why he hit me."

He didn't speak for a long moment. He couldn't find the right words to say. He didn't know how to tell her.

"It's something terrible, isn't it?" she asked quietly. "It's all right. I'm strong. I've had to be. Whatever it is, I can take it."

But could she? He drew away from her. "Come and sit in the buggy, then."

He led her to the vehicle and helped her inside, sliding in beside her. The horse continued to graze after a cursory, careless appraisal of the people behind him.

King fingered the reins in his lean, dark hands, staring straight ahead. "You and Alan were becoming close. I didn't like it. I wanted someone else for Alan, someone stronger and more intelligent."

"You thought that…"

"That you were the uneducated coward you seemed to be when you were with your father," he said bluntly. He glanced at her. "You said you could take it."

"I can." She lifted her chin. "But that isn't all."

He grimaced. "No. There's… something more." He looked down at the reins. "I seduced you."

She didn't think she'd heard him right. She couldn't have. "I…I beg your pardon?" she stammered.

He turned and looked into her startled dark eyes. "I seduced you in cold blood," he said flatly. "Then I threatened to tell Alan if you kept seeing him. But that wasn't all. I couldn't leave it there. I went to town and told your father that you'd offered yourself to me and that I wouldn't allow anyone that immoral to marry my brother."

She didn't breathe. Her eyes stared into his, and only when he saw her losing color did he realize how shocked she was.

"That's why your father beat you. Probably why he died," he said, his eyes narrowed and glittering with self-contempt. "I was playing God, Amelia. It was my mistake, but you paid for it."

She scrambled in her mind for one solid thought, but they all escaped her. She looked out to the horizon, trying to understand what he'd said.

"Did you hate me so much?" she asked on a cold laugh.

"I wanted you," he corrected. "So I thought I might be able to kill two birds with one stone: spare Alan and…" He broke off suddenly. "No. Hell, no, it wasn't that. It wasn't that at all! I wanted you, and I made an excuse to trample all over my ideals and your innocence and have you. That's it in a nutshell, and all my rationalizing won't make it into anything prettier." He looked down at her with anguish. "Everything that's happened to you is my fault, including your father's death."

"Oh, my." She was staring at her hands, working them back and forth. She was disgraced. Ruined. He must have gone to see her father at the bank, and other people might have overheard.

She closed her eyes. As the thought probed her mind, she began to see shocking pictures of herself with King, in his bed… !

She put her face in her hands with a small, wounded cry as unwanted memories of her own abandon suddenly flooded her thoughts.

"Don't… do that! No one knows all of it," he said, trying to comfort her. "I told them only that you offered, not that you… that we…" He cursed under his breath and wrapped the reins around his fingers tightly. "Amelia, I guess you'd better marry me."

She shivered. It was worse than she'd thought, than she'd dreamed. She was ruined. And she could be carrying his child. That was the most terrifying thought of all. She must run, hide!

What had he said, something about marriage? She lifted her face and looked at him as if she thought him mad. "What did you say?"

"I said I guess you'd better marry me," he repeated belligerently. "Unless you can think of some better way to cope with it. Or didn't you realize that you could be carrying my child?"

Her hands pressed involuntarily to her flat stomach. She stared into his silver eyes and felt a shock of emotion so charged that it made her uncomfortable. His child. A baby. A little human being who would look like one or both of them. A continuation of their families for another generation.

She dragged her eyes away. No, a baby wouldn't be something he craved. It would be an unwanted burden that would prevent him from marrying Darcy Valverde. And he would hardly want it. Or her. But if she didn't marry him, what would she do? If there was a child, it had to be a legitimate one. The disgrace would affect not only her, but Quinn and even Enid.

"Well?" he muttered.

She didn't speak. She was staring at her skirts. "It is not… certain."

"Not yet. You should know in a few weeks."

She flushed, uncomfortable to be discussing such an intimate topic with a man.

"I breed cattle," he reminded her. "I know more than you might think about how little things get born."

The blush grew worse. She twisted her skirt in her hands. "I don't know what to say," she said finally. "Marriage is the only way, but you are engaged to Miss Valverde."

"I am not," he said. "I have never been engaged to Miss Valverde. I considered it once or twice, that's all."

She glanced at him. His face was totally unreadable. "You would not be happy with me. The past would always be there, between us."

"Nothing matters except that your honor be spared any blemish due to my actions. And that our child, if there is one, be legitimate," he added. His eyes slid down to her flat stomach and rested there with the beginnings of hunger. "It might not be so bad to have a child, Amelia," he said thoughtfully.

"You should not speak of such things!" she said indignantly.

"The more I think of the idea, the more I like it," he continued quietly. "You are young and strong and hardly the coward I thought you. You have qualities that I admire, in fact."

"I'm honored," she said with exaggerated courtesy. "But your admiration is unsolicited. And you may consider me suitable material for a wife, but I do not consider you suitable material for anyone's husband, much less mine!"

His eyebrows lifted. "I'm very wealthy."

"Am I supposed to be impressed that you have material advantages over other men? What does that say of your intelligence, your courage, your kindness? You seem to feel that you will be doing me an honor to become my husband."

"Hardly that," he returned curtly. He glanced at her. "However, there have been plenty of women who were more than willing to marry me."

"Happily, I am not one of them," she said coolly. "You may take me home, now, please."

His eyes glittered. "Willing or not, you will marry me, Miss Howard."

"Not unless I want to," she shot back. "And right now, Mr. Culhane, there is not one man on earth I want less than you!"

He reached for her just as the sound of horse's hooves in the distance broke the silence.

King's hand stilled on her arm as a lone rider came closer and closer.

Amelia put up her free hand to shade her eyes against the sun, and the way the man sat the horse was so familiar that she wanted to cry.

"It's my brother!" she exclaimed, tears stinging into her eyes. "It's Quinn!"

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Q
uinn spotted the buggy and urged his mount forward. He'd been all the way out to Latigo, only to be told that Amelia had gone with King to see her father's grave. He followed the road back to the cemetery, and sure enough, there they both were.

He rode up beside them and dismounted. Amelia was out of the buggy in a flash, caught close in his arms.

"Oh, Quinn, he's dead, he's dead," she sobbed.

He smoothed her hair, whispering gently to her. He looked over her shoulder. "Hello, King," he said.

King nodded. Quinn looked as if he knew a lot more than he'd said so far, and it might be the end of their long friendship when he knew all of it. He dreaded losing the younger man's respect.

"It was quick, at least," she said into Quinn's shoulder. "He won't suffer anymore. The doctor said that the pain would have been unbearable if he'd lived, with nothing that would ease it."

"Are you all right?" he asked, lifting his head and lightly touching the padding of bandage between her shoulder blades.

It embarrassed her that he knew how it had happened. "I will be all right," she said. She didn't look at King.

But Quinn did, with hot, angry eyes. "I know all of it," he said flatly. "Or didn't you realize that El Paso isn't much more than a small town when it comes to gossip? Tell me all of it."

King took a deep breath and jammed his hands into his pockets. "Okay. I went to see your father about Amelia and slandered her. What happened to her, and him, was my fault."

"That was despicable."

"Yes, it was," King admitted with quiet self-contempt. "If it's any consolation, my brother refuses to speak to me, and my parents find me beneath contempt."

"And Amelia?" Quinn prompted.

King took a deep breath and ground his teeth together. "Amelia refuses to marry me."

"How could you blame her?" Quinn burst out. "My God, man… !"

King held up a lean hand. "I don't blame her. But if there is a child, I can't allow her to bear it alone and in shame."

Quinn's face drained of color. His hand dropped to the butt of his sidearm and quivered there.

King laughed coldly. "Go ahead," he invited, nodding toward the pistol. "It might be kinder than letting me live with what I've done."

Amelia, broken out of her trance, moved between them and put her hand over Quinn's where it rested on the gun. "It is a complex situation," she began slowly.

"Complex, indeed," King replied. "And now you've become one of only three people who know the whole truth of it."

"He… ?" Quinn asked Amelia fiercely, daring her to confirm it as he glared angrily toward the other man.

Amelia grimaced and lowered her eyes. She nodded.

"You son of a… !" Quinn exploded, dark eye's blazing as he fought Amelia's restraining hand.

"No!" she cried angrily. "Don't you dare shoot him!"

King's eyebrows went up over startled silver eyes. Quinn gaped at her.

"Oh, I know he's a blackguard," she told her brother, "but at least he's offered to do the honorable thing."

"After the dark deed was accomplished, instead of before, when he should have!" Quinn glared at his friend. "And how is it that you were all but engaged to Darcy Valverde and now you're mixed up with my sister in a way no gentleman ever should be?"

King shrugged broad shoulders. "I was saving Alan from your sister," he said slowly, and looked down at Amelia with eyes gone suddenly soft. "She threw a carafe of water at me," he added with a faint smile.

"Sadly, I missed!" she shot back. "Next time, I'll lay your hard head open with a brick bat!"

In spite of himself Quinn's eyes began to twinkle at the byplay. With their father gone, Amelia was beginning to sound like her old self. Oh, yes, she would be more than a match for fiery King when she was back on her feet. He had a mind to feel sorry for the man.

"Darcy would never threaten me with a brick bat," King assured Quinn. "You can give her away. We'll have a church wedding with all the trimmings."

"We will not," Amelia said weakly, sick at the thought of going into a church when she'd broken a sacred law by anticipating marriage with King.

"What happened was hardly your fault," King reminded her gently. "Church is the very best place to be when we have smudges on our conscience."

She shifted restlessly. "I suppose so."

"Mother would be upset if you suggested a civil service," he persisted.

"I'm not suggesting a service of any sort. You're the one who's insisting that we get married," she reminded him hotly. "Which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't decided to start arranging everybody's lives for them!"

King grimaced and looked away, a ruddy flush on his high cheekbones.

"I agree," Quinn said coldly. "But the thing is, you have to make it right. This gossip can't be allowed to continue. It will ruin Amelia's good name."

"I contacted the minister this morning, before I drove Amelia out here," King said, shocking her. "We've arranged the ceremony for Sunday after church, pleading that her father's death leaves her in such dire need of housing that a quick marriage is a necessity to prevent her being homeless."

"She doesn't
have
to marry you," Quinn said angrily. "She can live with me."

King's eyebrows arched. "In the Ranger barracks with the men? I can see how this idea would stem gossip about your sister," he said with a mocking smile.

"Don't be absurd. I meant that I could get a house," he countered.

"On a Ranger's pay?" King moved forward, confronting the younger man. He looked just a little dangerous as he stared Quinn down with glittering silver eyes. "I'm not letting her out of my sight. Not when she could be carrying my heir. If that doesn't suit you, you know what you can do."