Susan Johnson (21 page)

“In the meantime,” Lucy said sarcastically, “I’m going into the billiard room. I think he’s still available, since I don’t see an engagement ring on your finger, Arabella.”

And the voices drifted off down the hall.

Empress was numb with a chill realization. All she’d overheard was not a startling revealed discovery as much as a substantiation, verifying with bone-cold clarity what she’d not allowed herself to contemplate consciously. In the lushness of Trey’s embrace, when silken caresses and trembling desire inundated her senses, when Trey’s extraordinarily gentle kindness fascinated and charmed, it was easy to ignore the cold, hard facts. She’d deluded herself, allowed romantic notions to overcome her more prosaic nature, preferred to accept the gilded dream.

But stark reality faced her now. Unvarnished truth, unembellished by bewitching sensations. She was bought and paid for. And according to the world at large, that placed her in a certain class. Whatever her personal reasons, the public image was fixed. She had understood the consequences, of course, from the beginning.

It had been Trey, his smile, his warmth, his gently offered journeys into paradise that had made her disregard the image. Beautiful Trey, who never forgot anything she liked, even her favorite flower, although she’d only mentioned it once. Charming Trey, who always was kind. Always. And so handsome, she wanted to touch him a thousand times a day. But then, so did every other female who saw him. And just looking at him could ignite physical desire. The brutal conversation
she’d overheard echoed through her mind—“slut … fifty thousand dollars—scorching looks from silvery eyes.”

It was all a familiar game with him—not a miracle of love and passion like it was for her, a dream come true. For Trey it was only casual lust and another willing woman. A thousand excuses might explain away rumor after rumor, woman after woman. That’s what her unhappy mind would like to do.

But disclaim, deny, forgive, absolve—underneath it all, he enjoyed it. Or he’d stop.

Her first impulse, immediate and uncurbed, was to flee. But then her conscience overcame the first powerful feelings, and she distractedly tried to determine the numbered days remaining of her servitude. Was it five or six? Was it less? It seemed at once a mere passing moment and a lifetime. Then more rational thoughts intervened. If she fled now, would she be missed? Would she be pursued? By whom and to what purpose?

Confusion and questions tumbled through her mind until she forced herself to deal with this logically. She couldn’t leave now, not with a houseful of guests. And if pursuit was a possibility, her leaving would be noticed immediately. Since Trey’s parents and their guests were returning to Helena late Sunday afternoon, if she were to leave after Trey fell asleep Sunday night, she wouldn’t be missed until Monday morning, giving her a six- or seven-hour lead on any pursuit. Trey wasn’t strong enough to sustain any length of time in the saddle, she decided, and with Blue and Fox returning to Helena with Hazard and Blaze, anyone with an authority for action, excluding Trey, would be in Helena. She would have adequate time to outdistance pursuit—if it materialized.

She had momentary qualms about taking the gold without fulfilling her entire obligation, but she rationalized the misgivings away with the remembered offer from Hazard the night Trey had been brought home dying. Surely the money she was taking home to her brothers and sisters was much less than Hazard would have paid.

It made it easier—the resolution and the rationalization—to enter the billiard room a few moments later. Trey drank his medicine without demur, grinned when he handed the glass back to her, and murmured, “It almost worked.”

The smile Empress returned was forced but, in the buzz of
conversation and the haze of cigar smoke, not readily apparent to a man who considered his companion pleasantly content. The last week had been a halcyon idyll of sweetness and pleasure, unique even in the sensual activities of a profligate sybarite. How could he imagine that a sudden vicissitude had, chameleonlike, altered the fascinating pleasure.

He did not.

And Empress consciously played her role, pleasant when spoken to, vivacious even in the company of the spiteful women, a fact Trey noted with satisfaction. Once when Arabella attempted a less than friendly remark, she’d been curtly put down by her father. Undeterred by the moral strictures of the visiting ladies, the men were all charmed by the lovely Miss Jordan.

Somehow Empress managed to survive dinner that night. Somehow she managed to lie in Trey’s arms that night without crying bittersweet tears. Somehow Sunday progressed through a tortured lunch and teatime. With relief she watched the royal-blue and gilt parlor car pull away from the small private depot.

With relief and trepidation, for now she was alone with Trey. Her role-playing uncushioned by busy conversation and numerous guests. Through dinner her nerves showed, and when she’d answered an innocuous question about some choice of food in a long, convoluted, totally irrational overabundance of words, Trey looked across the small table set near the fireplace in his suite upstairs and said, “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she replied too quickly, too breathlessly, and he stared at her intently.

“Are you sure?” he asked gravely, then added, “You mustn’t let any of the people out here this weekend make the slightest difference to you. And if an apology would take away the stupidity of those blasted women, consider it offered.” He smiled. “Again. In triplicate.” Reaching across the crisp white linen cloth, he took her hand in his. “If the legislature wasn’t in session, and if I wasn’t still ill, they would never have been out here. Tell me you understand.”

It took all her strength to keep the tears from spilling over. How could he be so sweet? No wonder all the women loved him. It was that thought that suppressed the welling sadness.
She was, after all, only the latest in a long line of adoring women. She managed to smile then with a credible magnitude, and said, “Oh, I understand perfectly. I haven’t given them a thought of any consequence. Really. And nothing’s wrong. I probably had too much wine. I talk too much and too fast when I drink. Do you think it’ll snow tonight?”

Trey answered politely, even though her sudden change of subject was as restless as her nervous chatter. It was probably the overlong weekend, he decided.

He made love to her with an added tenderness that night, conscious of her disquietude. And when he held her in his arms later, as they fell asleep, he didn’t notice the tears glistening wetly on her lashes.

E
mpress waited until midnight before she carefully slid out of bed and dressed. Her leave-taking was simple, for after she’d put on her old clothes, she only had the saddlebags to carry downstairs. Taking the servants’ stairway down, she slipped out the kitchen door.

The cold struck her like an icy curtain when she stepped out on the porch. The night was clear with a full moon, so the temperature was well below zero. But thankfully there was little wind. The wind would freeze you faster than the cold.

Not wishing to call attention to herself with lights, she stood for a long time in the dark barn before her eyes became accustomed to the gloom. Clover was pleased to see her, repeatedly nudging her with her nose like a puppy while Empress saddled her and tied on the saddlebags. She debated briefly before saddling a second horse. It wasn’t stealing, she told herself, only borrowing. If she was going to bring supplies home for the rest of the winter, she needed a packhorse.

Ten minutes later Empress carefully led the horses out of the barn and, with extra precaution, walked them a good half
mile before mounting Clover. She walked and rode by turns during the night to keep her feet from freezing and by morning found herself within an hour’s ride of Cresswell’s crossroad. It wasn’t exactly a road, more like a heavily traveled trail, but the river forked there, and years ago the traders had set up a post. Now it was the closest store for the farmers who’d settled in the rich mountain valleys.

Cresswell’s was far enough away from their mountain cabin that she’d never gone there with her father, but she knew its location and intended to shop for her family. The gold would buy the necessities: the flour, sugar, coffee, tea, bacon, dried apples, and canned milk. And boots for the children and clothes. Plus the Christmas presents none of them had received because all the money was gone.

It was still half dark when she woke Cresswell with her knocking. He attempted several inquisitive forays as she selected her merchandise, in an effort to determine who this young woman was buying with a careful frugality. This woman dressed in worn men’s clothes paying with gold. This woman who had to have ridden all night to appear here at this hour of the morning. But Empress chose not to answer except in the briefest way, and Ed Cresswell had been in business long enough in this remote valley to know that most of his customers didn’t care to talk about themselves.

The horses were carefully packed, each precious bundle tightly tied into place, and when Empress left, she deliberately headed northeast. Ed Cresswell watched her until she was lost in the shrub pine lining the creek.

Once out of sight of the store, Empress swung Clover sharply and rode northwest to the hidden mountain valley that was home.

Thoughts of Trey intruded, were pushed aside, suppressed, then stealthily stole back into her consciousness, more sharply set than before. She remembered how he woke in the morning with first a smile for her and then a kiss; how he looked seated across the breakfast table from her, dark-skinned and relaxed, eating with an appetite she teased him about. She remembered how it felt to slide her fingers through his silky black hair when he’d be bending over her; it was thick and heavy, and he’d always smile. With a deep sigh she realized how much she’d begun to care for him. A futile exercise up
against Trey’s casual view of women. A futile exercise considering the numbers of other females who cared for him.

Overhearing the disagreeable conversation was for the best, she decided. Otherwise the temptation to stay would have become stronger every day. And the temptation to be drawn into Trey’s enchantment ultimately would have been heartbreaking. He’d loved too many women. God, he’d loved too many women. Better a small, wrenching sadness now than a humiliating heartache later. She silently congratulated herself on the merit of her rational judgment. Trey Braddock-Black was not interested in permanence.

But her mental soliloquy didn’t quash the longing or dispel the sadness at leaving. Her chest ached with the pain of it.

As Empress was passing just north of Cresswell’s store, Trey was roundly cursing, alternating with shouted orders as he tucked his wool shirt into the heavy worsted pants he wore. He had on two pair of woolen socks inside his fur-lined, knee-high moccasins, and one of the upstairs servants was now scurrying to bring him his buffalo coat.

The alarm that had the house in a state of panic had sounded at about eight-thirty, when Trey had leisurely rolled over in his large bed and encountered cool sheets rather than Empress’s warm body. His roar had brought every servant in the house to attention, and the braver ones ran upstairs to see what had caused his angry displeasure.

It took only two crisp questions and a servant’s lightning-quick trip to the stables to ascertain that his pleasant interlude was abruptly over. No one argued with Trey, although most would have liked to point out that he still wasn’t fully recuperated, and a precipitous chase across the winter mountains might be beyond his physical endurance. But since they valued their heads, in his present storming rage, instead they surreptitiously called Helena with the news. Hazard would send instructions when he and Blaze returned home, they were told. “Find him!” Timms had snapped and hung up.

Ten minutes later Trey was mounted, his gun belt buckled on over his heavy coat, his Winchester ready in the scabbard of his saddle, his expression dangerous. Empress had several
hours head start on him, but the tracks in the sunlit snow were like a blazing trail.

He didn’t want company, he’d curtly snapped. He wanted to be alone when he caught her; he wanted
her
alone, he thought savagely as he turned to check the bindings on his packhorse one last time. An unrestrained ferocity burned through his brain. She’d left! Ill-tempered and moody, all he knew was that he wanted her back! The reasons were incomplete and subliminal, and at present he was in no state to intellectualize them. But he wanted no witnesses at their meeting. So he brushed off the offers of help, told them lies. Told them she only lived twenty miles up the mountain and he’d be there in three hours. Told them in a polite, but coldly controlled voice, that no one dared challenge.

He was at Cresswell’s store at one-thirty, having pushed his paint at a steady canter all the way. He saw that Rally was fed and watered while he questioned the store owner. He discovered when Empress had arrived, what she’d purchased. Trey paid for Cresswell’s answers with gold but refused his inquiries. And with the Colts that looked worn from use strapped on the rider’s hips and a fierce anger in his voice, Cresswell only asked the questions once.