Deep Purple (4 page)

She did not know what betraying emotion might have f
lickered across her face, but something in her expression caught his intent gaze. He blinked away a frown of puzzlement. “You know, you surprised me last night,” he began quietly, “when you and Professor Stridehope were talking. I had no idea—”

“
So there you are,” Law said lightly.

Both Sherrod and she whirled. She could well imagine the guilty expression she wore. What could Law have thought, catching his stepbrother's hands at her waist
—seeing the two of them standing so close to one another? She strove to compose herself as Law walked toward them in long, easy strides that had none of Sherrod’s quick, decisive movements. “The old man wants to talk with you.”

Sherrod dropped his hands with a sigh. “
Well, I did want to let you know that I couldn’t be more pleased with the children’s progress. Miss Howard.”

She watched him walk away before she turned to face Law. If there was even a hint of smirk on the young man
’s face, she would slap him. But Law’s countenance was expressionless.

"Good day. ma
’am,” he drawled, tilting the brim of the sombrero and ambling away.

She told herself that it was her own guilty thoughts which had made her jump to the conclusion that Law would suspect Sherrod and herself of improper behavior. Law
’s craggy face had evidenced no such suspicion. She really had nothing to worry about. Then what was it about those sand-brown eyes that nagged at her so?

CHAPTER 6

C
atherine broke the thread with her teeth and let the hem of her riding skirt drop about her Wellington boots. The lead weights she had sewn in the hem halted the swirl of the skirt and, she hoped, would prevent any gust of wind from blowing it above her boots.

The skirt had become threadbare with use but was still serviceable, at least for the solitary riding sh
e planned. It wasn’t as if she were riding in Hyde Park before the
haut monde
, although the way Margaret had acted the day Catherine packed, one would have thought so.

“
Now you must let me lend you one of my hair switches,’’ she had said as Catherine folded the riding skirt. “It's the latest thing, and you’ll look so much better with a sausage curl peeking beneath your riding hat.”

With a smile Catherine held one of the switches about her face. Yes, her sister was right. It did soften the sharpness of her c
hin. With a sigh, she dropped the switch back in its box. Her hair was thick enough as it was, too thick and heavy to make those fashionable curls about the face. And besides, the switch really matched Margaret's deep-brown hair, which had a beautiful russet sheen. Catherine thought of her own hair as "just plain brown,” although she could remember her father teasing her that its shade was as rich as fudge.

She placed the beaver top hat on her head, giving it the forward tilt Margaret insisted was
de rigueur
, pulled the white swiss veil over her face, and took up her quirt. She was ready. Ready? She was excited! It would be the first time in—how long, two, three years?—that she had been horseback riding.

The Civil War had curtailed one of the few things in w
hich she truly took pleasure. And it seemed the perfect opportunity for a ride, since it was Sunday and there would be no classes. And Lucy was taking a nap, as she did quite often—for her headaches, she said.

Catherine meant to take the shortcut through t
he courtyard to the stable, but at the gate Elizabeth’s voice halted her. “You aren’t going riding, are you?”

She turned to face Elizabeth, who stood in the doorway, a feather duster clutched in her hands. Catherine wondered if the woman ever relaxed
—read or took a nap. Even with the wealth of servants, Elizabeth was forever cleaning the house, her hands running over the woodwork, the adobe stones, the metal fixtures as if the Stronghold were a lover. “Why, yes, I was planning to ride.”

“
Not on Sunday, Miss Howard! It’s God’s day.”

Catherine smiled. “
I thought every day was God’s day.”

Elizabeth
’s mouth hardened, and the eyes narrowed. “Be careful, Miss Howard. You’re tempting the hand of the Lord.”

“
I shall be very careful riding, thank you,” she said evenly, and, closing the gate on the stone-faced woman, she proceeded to the stables. But the confrontation with the woman had dampened her excitement, and she jerked with annoyance on the straps as she saddled one of the better mounts.

“
I’ll be cursed if I’m going to let that old witch ruin my day,” she told the blaze-faced roan as she rode through the Stronghold’s wide, open gates, ignoring the astonished looks of the guards.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The lean, swarthy man slouched in the saddle. The fatigue of three days’ hard riding showed in the dust-caked grooves on either side of the mouth and the fine lines fanning out from heavy-lidded eyes. Yet the eyes did not miss anything . . . not the centipede that wriggled through the sand two yards away nor the indolent flight of the vulture in the blue-white sky overhead; and most of all the eyes did not miss the horse and rider whose course he had been following for the past quarter of an hour from his lookout on the hogback ridge.

His breath whistled between his teeth. Damn th
e foolish female! But she was no more the fool than he was to even entertain ideas about such a woman. She knew nothing of life; instead of drinking lightly from the well, she would be like a thirsty man in the desert. It would destroy her . . . and the man foolish enough to drink with her.

He pulled the bandanna from his neck and wiped at the perspiration that slid from the drenched curls down the high bones of his chiseled face, all the while his gaze fastened on the woman, watching the way her firmly rou
nded buttocks hugged the sidesaddle. No, he didn’t have any good sense at all. Damn the woman and double-damn her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Catherine pulled up on the roan
’s reins and turned in the direction of the eroded ridge from where the voice had come. Law sat on a horse that looked as though it had been ridden to South America and back. One of the young man’s long legs was crooked around the saddle horn as if he had been sitting there for quite some time. His sombrero sported more dust than his yellow duster.

“
I asked you what you think you’re doing,” he repeated.

Another spoilsport! She sighed. It was obviously not going to be a good day for riding. “
What does it look as if I’m doing?”

“
It looks like you’re getting yourself into a hell of a lot of trouble,” he said. He swung his leg back over the saddle and edged the pinto down the ridge toward her. “Cochise and his Chiricahuas are on the warpath not ten miles away and you decided to go for a jaunt?”

She shrugged. “
If they don’t bother me, I won’t bother them.”

He reined in alongside of her, and she could see now the irritation in the grim set of the mouth and lowered line of the tawny brows. He rolled his eyes. “
Miss Howard, there’s nothing better that I would like to do right now than throttle you. If there’s anything worse than a foolish woman, it’s a determined foolish woman.”

“
Well, you had better think twice before you do, because it won’t be easy. And understand me, Law, I plan to continue riding as long as I am employed here.”

“
Even if it means your death,” he taunted.

“
We all have to die sometime.”

“
But not a thousand times, Miss Howard; which is the way Cochise will have it if he gets hold of your pretty little body.”

She drew a deep breath, trying to contain her anger. "I
’m not afraid of dying,” she said evenly. “But I am afraid of living an imprisoned life—which is just what the women at the Stronghold are doing. Lucy’s teetering at the edge of a nervous breakdown, and Elizabeth—Elizabeth couldn’t care less that a world exists out beyond the Stronghold’s walls. If I die, it’s going to be from trying to live!”

He glanced pointedly at the roan. “
We could refuse to lend you a mount. After all, if Cochise gets you, he gets our horse, also.”

“
You can take the cost out of my salary. And if you refuse to lend me a horse, I’ll simply walk!” She wheeled the horse around and broke into a gallop, hoping the horse’s hooves sprayed the abominable young man with more dust.

Once
inside the Stronghold’s walls, she let loose the rein of her anger. Her entire day was ruined! She reached the stable and slung her quirt into the hay. She was in the midst of jerking her saddle from the horse when she saw that Law had passed through the gates. Having no wish to talk further with him, she quickly tended the horse and stalked back to the house. She had to pass the adobe beehive oven on the way, and the old Indian cook spoke to her in Spanish. “You have been riding, señorita?” “Not you too. Loco!”

Beneath the thatch of chalk-white hair, the brown pebbled eyes smiled before moving beyond her to the stable. “
Lorenzo does not like your riding?”

She slapped her quirt against her gloved hand. “
Lorenzo does not like anything—most of all work!”

Loco
placed one doughy disc of bread on the wooden shovel and pushed it inside the oven’s mouth. “Ah, but, señorita, he likes my bread.”

She had the suspicion the old Indian was teasing her, calming her. “
And he liked my pies as a child.”

“
He could only have been a demon!” she snapped.

Loco
’s eyes met hers. “
Verdad
. A boy like all boys—stealing the fruit pies I made from the window where I sat them to cool. Taking daring chances that would give the Doña Dominica heart failure.”

“
She loved him very much?”

“
He was everything to her, especially after his father died. Then Don Francisco came and offered Dona Dominica a man’s love that the boy’s love could not offer. And Don Francisco had his own son—and wife. You can understand Lorenzo felt an outsider in his own home. He ran off. Many times I went to find him living at the
rancheria
in one of the peon’s huts. Then Don Francisco sent him off to school. When Lorenzo came back a man grown, his mother was dead.”

The bony shoulders beneath the white cotton
camisa
hunched. ‘‘But I am old and ramble too much, no?”

“
No, I enjoyed talking with you, Loco.” She cast a glance behind her. Law was walking toward the house in that lazy stride peculiar to him. Was there no respite? Quickly she bade the Indian cook goodbye and stalked away.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Lucy? Are you feeling all right?”

A mumbled reply came from the closed bedroom, and Catherine hesitated outside Lucy
’s door, unsure whether to knock again. Sherrod had been in Tucson for two days now, and Lucy had made only cursory appearances at mealtimes, returning to her room immediately afterward. She seemed only vaguely aware of the others at the table.

With Sherrod gone and Law back in the hills prospecting, so Don Francisco said with a bitter curve to his mouth, the dinner t
able that night seemed especially quiet. When Lucy failed to appear, Catherine at once volunteered to check on her. Lucy’s chatter was infinitely preferable to looking at Elizabeth’s inflexible expression across the table. If Don Francisco had not been at dinner to relieve the stilted conversation, Catherine would have taken dinner in her room.

She knocked once more on Lucy
’s door. When there was no answer this time, she cautiously pressed the latch. It was the first view she had had of the room Sherrod and Lucy shared. Much the size of her own, the room was dominated by an old but elegant maple four-poster bed draped with tasseled blue velvet. It was there Sherrod and Lucy made love. Catherine had only a fair idea of what the act of copulation entailed, but to merely imagine a man like Sherrod holding her caused her mouth to go as dry as cotton.

Quietly she crossed to the bed. Lucy lay there, in a fetal position, as beautiful as a china doll. A pink print cotton wrapper lay open to reveal the full breasts ab
ove the whalebone corset. The curly lashes fluttered open. Pale-blue eyes looked up at Catherine, and for a moment she would have sworn Lucy did not see her. Then, “Why, hello. Catherine." The glazed eyes shifted to note the little light left in the room. "Goodness, am I late for dinner?"

Catherine crossed to the nightstand and removed the lamp
’s glass chimney. "They're holding dinner for you now. Lucy.” The wick caught, and soft light filled the room as she turned to look at Sherrod's wife. "Are you feeling ill?” she asked with real concern, for Lucy's cheeks were flushed.

The young woman pulled the wrapper tighter about her and looked away. "I suppose it must be that time of month."

Catherine leaned over to touch Lucy's forehead, finding it cool. “Is there anything I can do?”

‘
I’m fine, really,” Lucy said.

Her breath, heavy with an unidentifiable fragrance, drifted up to Catherine. For the first time she noticed the small brown bottle on the nightstand. The preparation, no doubt, accounted for Lucy's unusua
lly sweet breath.

Lucy nodded toward the bottle. “
If I could just have a touch more. I'm sure I’ll feel like going down for supper."

Catherine looked around for a spoon, but Lucy reached for the bottle and swallowed part of its contents directly from the b
ottle’s mouth. Only then did suspicion worm its way into Catherine’s mind.

Lucy handed the bottle back to her. The young woman
’s eyes possessed a brighter look. She slid down from the high bedstead to pick up the nut-brown daydress that lay crumpled on the floor.

"Lucy, you're not
—addicted to laudanum, are you?”

Lucy whirled, the dress clutched before her. "Of course not. I don
’t know how you could even think such a thing!”

Catherine nodded toward the brown bottle. "It does contain laudanum, Lucy,”
she said gently.

“
Not that much. And besides, I need it.” A suggestion of tears sparkled in the faded blue eyes. "Some nights it relaxes me.” Her lively voice floundered. "Momma always said I was high-strung, and Sherrod—well, he really is patient with me, but . . . you understand.”

Catherine was not quite sure she did. Further, she wondered if Sherrod was aware of his wife's problem. The woman
’s moods vacillated so radically it seemed impossible for anyone not to notice. "Of course I understand. I'll tell the others you'll be out soon.' ’