Silken Savage (26 page)

“Are they
both
hers?” Edward choked out.

Jeffrey nodded, miserable. “I’m afraid so.”

“Does this mean the wedding is off?” Julie’s inane comment drew dumbfounded looks all around.

“I think we can discuss that later, Julie,” her mother advised weakly.

“No,” Jeffrey interceded, “I’ve already made it clear to her, and now I want to assure all of you that I will still want to marry Tanya.”

Tanya’s father leapt from his chair and started to pace angrily. “That’s good of you, son, but what about — what are you going to do with
— damn
it!” He could not admit that the two black-haired babies were his daughter’s.

Suddenly he stopped pacing and stood glaring down at the children and Tanya. “I won’t stand for it, I tell you!” he roared. “Give them away, send them back to the Indians, sell them to Mexican traders, turn them out to starve — anything! Just get rid of them! I won’t have some savage’s halfbreed bastards underfoot, a constant reminder of a time we’d all like to forget!”

“Edward!” Sarah was astounded at the extent of his anger. This was a side of her husband she rarely saw. Calm, capable Edward rarely raised his voice, let alone lost his temper.

Kit growled low in her throat ready to defend her mistress and her sons, and Edward backed off slightly, though his face was still set and angry.

Tanya’s face hardened and her eyes were narrow slits, but she said nothing. Silently, she put the baby back into his cradleboard and bundled him up. Readjusting her tunic, she picked up the baby in one arm and Hunter in the other and started to leave the room.

With a tired sigh, Melissa rose to follow her. “Well, folks,” she said, “It’s been nice visiting with you.”

“Whoa!” Jeffrey stepped into Tanya’s path. “Where do you think you are going?”

Tanya spoke one sharp word in Cheyenne.

“Home,” Melissa interpreted.

“Wait!” Sarah started toward Tanya. “Wait, darling, please! Try to understand the shock we’ve all had today. Until an hour ago, we didn’t even know whether or not you were still alive — and now this!”

“We’ll work it out, Tanya,” her Uncle George promised. “Come back and sit down. Your father is upset.”

“Your damned right I’m upset!” Edward shouted. “My daughter shows up after nearly three years looking like some Indian squaw, dragging two half-breed kids behind her, and I’m supposed to be
calm?
”

“Be quiet, Edward,” Elizabeth ordered, seeing Tanya scowl again at his words. She advanced toward Tanya, watching Kit cautiously. “You are home, Tanya, and what your father overlooked in his tirade is that this is
my
home, not his. I reserve the right to say who goes and who stays. I say you stay; you and your children, and Melissa as well.”

As she came closer, Kit snarled. Elizabeth shot the cat an exasperated look. “As for
this
thing,” she pointed to Kit, “if you can keep him in line, he can stay; but if he so much as looks like he wants to bite me, I’ll turn him into a hearthrug faster than you can blink!”

A reluctant smile tugged at Tanya’s lips. Her aunt reached out for the baby, waiting. At last Tanya nodded, and relinquished Mark into her arms.

“Good!” Elizabeth said decisively. “Now that’s straightened out, let’s get you settled in.” Turning to Julie, she said, “Go find that delinquent nephew of mine and tell him it’s past dinner time.” At Tanya’s questioning look she explained, “My youngest sister’s son, Jeremy, is living with us now. He’s a twelve-year-old scamp who’s never still a minute. Trouble is, he’s cute, and he knows it.”

“He’s a brat!” Julie grouched on her way out. “He and Tanya ought to get along famously!”

A look passed between Tanya and Melissa, and Melissa commented lamely, “Julie hasn’t changed much, has she?”

Elizabeth laughed and shook her head, “You can please some of the people some of the time, but Julie — rarely. Now let’s leave the problems for later and celebrate Christmas with joyful spirits and profound thanks for the safe return of these two girls,” she added solemnly.

“Amen,” came the chorused reply.

The next few weeks were an anxious period of adjustment through trial and error, on both sides. Through it all, Tanya had one devoted admirer; young Jeremy. He was truly enthralled with Tanya, and even more so with Kit.

The first opportunity he had to catch her alone, he asked, “Did you really live with the Indians?”

Tanya nodded.

“Are you an Indian now too?”

Again she agreed.

“That’s terrific!” he exclaimed, his eyes shining. “Oh, boy,” he sighed dreamily. “I sure wish I was one.” Then he brightened, “Well, we both have the same Aunt Elizabeth, so that’s something anyhow, huh? That sort of makes me related to an Indian I guess, doesn’t it?”

Tanya shrugged and grinned at him.

“You sure don’t talk much,” he commented, “but that’s alright. I don’t like yakkity girls. I like your cougar, though. What’s his name?”

Tanya surprised him with an answer. “Kit.”

“Can I pat him?”

The eagerness of Jeremy’s face won Tanya over. “Her,” she said in English. “Kit’s a female.”

“Can I?” he repeated.

Tanya called Kit to her. Then she told Jeremy to let Kit smell his hands. He sat down on the floor, his hands extended. Soon Kit was licking his hand, his arms, and his face; and boy and cougar were rolling on the floor, playing. Tanya and Kit had found a friend.

Before he left her that day, Jeremy promised solemnly, “I won’t tell anyone you remember English if you don’t want me to.”

“Not just yet,” Tanya agreed.

Jeremy thought about this for a moment, then with remarkable insight, he asked, “Is it because of this Lieutenant Young?”

“Mostly.”

Jeremy nodded. “I don’t trust him either.”

Not everyone was as tolerant as Jeremy, but Tanya did not make it easy for them. Unlike Melissa, who readily reverted to the white world, Tanya repeatedly dug her heels in. She refused to wear shoes or dresses, sticking adamantly to her doeskin clothing and moccasins. Though she sat in chairs and ate with the proper silverware, she would not sleep in a bed. Instead, she slept on a pallet of blankets on the floor. She still refused to speak English, and spent most of her time playing with her sons or gazing longingly out the window.

Edward and Jeffrey had spoken at length the day after Christmas, and Jeffrey had explained much of what he thought he knew about Tanya.

After Jeffrey had left, Edward talked with Melissa. “Lt. Young says Tanya was married to one of their warriors,” he said. “This can’t be, can it? What I mean is, he just took her for his captive, didn’t he?” He looked so hopeful that Melissa actually started to feel sorry for him.

“No, Mr. Martin,” she said as gently as she could. “There was an actual ceremony, and she became his wife. In her eyes, and his, they are married.”

“This is preposterous!” he blustered. “Next you’ll be telling me she
loves
the savage!”

Melissa deliberately held her temper, knowing how hard this must be for him. “Tanya does love him, and her husband is not a savage. He is a Cheyenne Chieftain, and he is very fair and protective of those he cares for.”

“He’s an Indian!” Edward argued illogically.

“Yes, he is, but that does not matter to Tanya. He is also proud and strong and handsome. This is what your daughter sees.”

Edward’s face became mottled as he strove to control his anger. “Tanya is engaged to Jeffrey, and she’s lucky he’ll still have her. She’ll forget the Indian soon enough.”

Melissa could hold her tongue no longer. “I really don’t see how that is possible, Mr. Martin. Your daughter considers herself married to Panther. She has his sons. You delude yourself if you think Lt. Young stands a snowball’s chance in July of ever making Tanya forget Panther. How can a woman be engaged to or marry one man when she is already wed in fact and in her heart to another? Face it, Mr. Martin, don’t fight it, or you and your daughter will never have anything between you again but hate and distrust.”

“Say what you like, Tanya will get over this Indian,” he insisted.

Melissa shook her head at his obstinacy. “We’ll see.”

Another bone of contention between Tanya and her father were Tanya’s sons. Edward still thought it would be best if she’d give them up.

“She’d forget that savage a lot quicker if she didn’t have them as constant reminders,” he told his wife one night.

“I know,” Sarah sighed, “but she loves those children. I don’t think she’ll ever give them up, no matter what.”

“What if they suddenly came up missing?” he suggested.

“That’s a horrible, ugly thought, Edward!” Sarah glared at him. “What has come over you?”

Putting his head in his hands, he murmured, “I don’t know, Sarah. I just can’t stand the thought of our lovely daughter the way she is now.”

“Give her time, Edward — but let me tell you this. If anything would ever happen to those children because of you, Tanya would never forgive you. Nor would I, for that matter. You have always been kind and thoughtful and gentle, and those are qualities I’ve admired in you all these years. I could not live with you knowing you had taken your hurt and anger out on two helpless children.”

“What are you going to do?” he cried brokenly.

Sarah sat next to him on the bed and put her arms about him. “I don’t know, Edward. Perhaps we start by being thankful we have her back on any terms. She’s alive and well and home again, and that is what we were praying for all these past months.”

“I’ll try,” he promised. “If Jeffrey Young can still want to marry her, knowing Tanya will not give up those boys, I suppose I can put up with it.”

“While you’re at it, try accepting the idea, not just enduring it,” Sarah suggested gently. “Tanya knows you disapprove and she feels my disappointment. Perhaps if we try a little harder to accept what she’s become and understand what she’s been through, she’ll try harder to adapt and adjust to us.”

Edward pulled his wife close. “How did you get so wise?” he asked as he kissed her.

“By living with you,” she answered, her eyes shining.

But Sarah was having her own set of problems to deal with. While she was relieved and thankful to have Tanya home again, safe and relatively sound, her heart bled with pity each time she looked at her daughter. Here was her beautiful young daughter whose life had held such promise — beautiful, vivacious, intelligent; engaged to a handsome lieutenant, Tanya’s future had been bright until her disappearance.

Now it was as if a stranger had taken her place; a silent, solemn ghost who walked, ate, and slept in the same house but existed on a different level from the rest of them. She rarely spoke, and then only in Cheyenne. Where once she had laughed readily, enjoying life to its height, now her face hardly ever revealed what she was feeling. It was as if she wore an inflexible mask; all the features frozen into place. The only time she smiled was when she was playing with her sons.

The children were another matter. While Sarah did not resent them as her husband did, she found it hard to accept them. In her loving heart, she saw them as unfortunate victims of fate. They were innocent babes, not to be blamed for anything that had happened. On the other hand, they stood between Tanya and true happiness.

Sarah felt pity for the children, knowing they would never be fully accepted by society. She felt sympathy for Tanya knowing what her daughter would have to endure to shield her children from slander and prejudice; the pain she would go through in her love for her sons.

That Tanya loved the boys, Sarah did not doubt, and in a way, she understood it. They were Tanya’s flesh and blood. They had grown in and been nourished by her body. There was a special bond that could never be broken.

Sarah could not fathom how Tanya could have loved her Cheyenne husband, but Melissa insisted she had. Surely the girl was wrong; mistaken. Surely Tanya had merely submitted to his demands out of necessity and was too proud to admit it. In trying to understand Tanya as she now was, Sarah even entertained the possibility that Tanya felt some sort of commitment to him as the father of her sons.

Was this why she clung to her Indian ways? Jeffrey had even gone so far as to suggest she might try to return to Panther. Until Tanya came to her senses, and threw off this confused state that seemed to have a hold on her, he advised they hide her horse, and make sure none of theirs were available to her. Once she was back to her old self, they might let their guard down.

In her dealings with Tanya, Sarah tried to be understanding, but her expressions of sympathy seemed only to repel her daughter even further. Tanya took offense at her mother’s attitude toward herself and her sons, and withdrew behind an impenetrable, invisible barrier of silent pride.

After a week of being inside the house, Tanya felt the walls start to close in on her. Unused to feeling so confined, she took to taking daily walks with Kit. Sometimes Jeremy tagged along, and often Tanya took one of her sons with her.

When first she started going off, her mother or Aunt Elizabeth would make some excuse why she should leave one or the other of the boys at home. On the few occasions when she preferred to take both, Jeffrey or one of the others insisted on accompanying her. It wasn’t long before Tanya realized what they were doing. As long as at least one of her sons were left behind, they were assured of her return. Otherwise, they felt obliged to go along. Tanya knew they were doing it out of concern for her. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust her; it was just that they were unsure of her emotional state and were determined to protect her from herself until she was completely back to normal again. She laughed ruefully to herself over their transparent efforts, but said nothing. Once she was aware of this, however, she voluntarily took only one of her boys along at a time, feeling it easier to give in on this than create more tension needlessly.

Julie despised it when she was drafted to walk with Tanya, and Tanya was well aware of her sister’s animosity. Tanya considered it extreme and could not figure out why Julie seemed to hate her. Granted, they had always bickered, as sisters tend to do. There had been the usual rivalry, arguments, fighting and jealousies that siblings are prone to, but Tanya sensed there was something else behind this.