The Wildest Heart (11 page)

“I ought to slap your face for that, by God!” he swore at me, and I gave a short, bitter laugh.

“Why not? You've done everything but rape me!”

“An' it seems to me like you're asking for more,” he said slowly, his eyes traveling over me with an odd expression.

“Oh God, you're impossible! Why don't we put an end to this whole disgusting episode now?”

“It ain't over, Rowena, an' I think you know it. I came here mad, and I guess I made you mad. Maybe I shouldn't have done what I did. But, by God, it happened, and it's changed something between us. If you'll stop acting like a stubborn, spoiled brat, you'll admit it too!”

Of course I would admit nothing. How could I? I would never give him the satisfaction.

Todd Shannon finally left, angry again, when I retreated into sullen silence and refused to say anything. And as for myself, I spent a miserable night. There was a side to my character I had not known existed, and it frightened me. Was it possible that I had inherited some weakness of nature from my mother? It was frightening to be swept by a sensuality, a feeling of pure lust, that had nothing to do at all with my rational mind! No wonder Todd Shannon was so sure of himself. How pitiful my self-confidence, my avowals of hatred must have seemed to him! All he had to do was kiss me, and after a while I had begun to kiss him back. What was wrong with me?

Shannon's last, scathing words, repeated themselves over and over in my mind. “For God's sake, what are you runnin' from? When you stop hidin', you just send me word. Until then, gal, I'll leave you alone!”

How dared he? How dared he insinuate… I felt as if I had barely fallen asleep when Marta brought me coffee the next morning, her round face concerned.

“El señor patron—ah, there is a man who is like a bull when he is enraged! His rages are something terrible, this I know. Only your padre, our good señor was not afraid! Alas, señorita—”

I wondered how much of our encounter she had witnessed. So she pitied me, did she? Even Marta, even Jules, who seemed to tiptoe around the house this morning. I was a “poor señorita.” A helpless female, incapable of standing up to a man.

Well, if I could not conquer through force, I would try guile. Yes, Todd Shannon would realize I was no ordinary enemy, and that he had not scored a victory over me yet!

Todd Shannon had broken my peace, but he had also cracked my shell of lethargy. I began to take more notice of things that were going on around me. For instance, because of the enormous size of the SD ranch, there was a bunkhouse within two hundred yards of my house. Even closer was a small shack which Marta explained had been the foreman's cabin during the time when my father and Todd Shannon had hardly been on speaking terms. The main house itself, my house now, was shielded by a grove of trees, but I knew that Marta and Jules took it in turn to cook for the men. The horses were corralled a little further off, but it was Jules who always brought my mare around for me, saddled and ready to ride. I had had no formal contact yet with the men, who took their orders from Shannon; however, I planned to
change that after a while. For the moment, I wanted to learn more about the ranch itself, and how it was run.

I began to wish that Mr. Bragg would arrive. I needed his advice now more than ever, and he continued to stay away! Why did he have to be so mysterious?

Well, with or without him, I'm going to teach Todd Shannon a lesson,
I vowed to myself, and by a strange coincidence, I was helped in this objective by the belated arrival of my luggage from Boston. Mark Shannon drove over himself from the stage depot in a flatbed wagon, his manner diffident.

“I didn't know if you'd care for visitors or not, Lady Rowena. But I thought you might want the rest of your clothes. I don't mean to intrude.”

His eyes were a clear, pale blue, and his blond hair gleamed in the sunlight. He was polite, a civilized, educated young man, who had treated me with respect, even if I had looked a fright the first time he had set eyes on me.

When he drove up, I was still wearing a peasant blouse and a full, brightly patterned skirt, but I wore sandals—
huaraches
Marta called them—on my feet, and my hair was loose over my shoulders, since I had just washed it.

I saw the way Mark's eyes rested on me, moved away in embarrassment when he caught me watching him, and then came back to me as if drawn by a magnet. Mark Shannon was no shy Western man. I knew, from Corinne's inveterate gossiping, that he had been quite the young man about town, one of Boston's eligible young bachelors and much sought after by the girls. I had become used to seeing men's eyes on me, just this way, but that had been in London, and Todd Shannon had told me scornfully I looked like a peasant woman only a few days ago.

I found myself deliberately smiling at Mark Shannon as I invited him to see my patio. “Jules will see to my trunks,” I said casually. “It was very kind of you to come all this way. Please, I've grown lonely, recently.”

He followed me with alacrity. Obviously Mark Shannon was used to women who flirted with him. We sat down together and Marta, smiling, brought out orange juice,
naranjada.
And we began to converse about Boston, and London, the theater and the opera, books we had both read. Mark, now that the first awkwardness was over, seemed more self-assured. Neither of us mentioned his uncle, nor his visit to me. We laughed and talked easily, and before Mark left we had almost become conspirators together.

He would come early tomorrow to take me riding.

“You can't possibly see all of the SD, of course, but I can show you enough so you can get a general idea. There's a map somewhere. I'll see if I can find it for you.” His blue eyes flattered me. “I have a feeling you're going to make out just fine, and I'm glad. In fact—” he laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling attractively, “I think you're going to be a great success. Wait until the governor sees you!”

“Oh?” I lifted my brows questioningly and he gave another rather boyish laugh.

“I was leading up to that! The territorial governor will be visiting Silver City soon. It's a lot bigger town than Santa Rita, and they're giving a big ball for him. I'd been hoping I'd get the opportunity to ask you, and now I've found it! Will you allow me to escort you there?”

“You're asking me now that my clothes have finally arrived?” I teased him, and he flushed.

“You know that's not so! I meant to ask you before, but I was waiting until you were ready, I guess.” He gave me a rueful look. “I saw through your disguise, you know! Even in those drab clothes, you were beautiful. The bone structure of your face… I'm something of an amateur artist, you see! That same night, I sketched you without those disfiguring spectacles I was sure you had worn deliberately. And with your hair loose, as it is now. Will you forgive me?”

“How can I not forgive you?” It was my turn to shrug a trifle guiltily. “I had no idea my attempt at making myself inconspicuous would arouse such a hornets' nest! Your uncle…”

“Uncle Todd is a very unpredictable man. I'm afraid his shocking rudeness showed me up at a disadvantage. I had no idea what he was going to do, and when I saw how he was acting, I didn't know what I could say to you!”

I lifted my shoulders lightly. “It doesn't matter now. I think we have begun to understand each other.”

“Then you will go with me to Silver City? I'll come for you the day before, of course, and reserve a room at the hotel.”

“I'd love to go,” I said smiling.

The ball at Silver City was still a month off, but in the meantime, I rode almost daily with Mark Shannon, and watched him fall in love with me. I was vindictively glad that his uncle made no overt move to see me again, although I guessed that he knew of all the time his nephew spent with me.

Let Todd Shannon wonder. Let him think the worst of me, if that was what he chose! I made no effort to take over part of the management of the SD, although I learned a lot from Mark. The riding habits I wore now were my newer ones, and I made some effort to pin up my hair so that it looked becoming, although I always wore a hat, a flat-brimmed, flat-crowned Spanish-styled one that Mark had given to me. Once or twice Flo Jeffords accompanied us, but I don't think she was happy at the transformation in my looks and manners. As soon as she found she wasn't the center of attention, she made excuses to stay at home.

I could sense that she did not like me, and that she resented Mark's growing interest in me. She reminded me, in some indefinable way, of my mother, and so I couldn't like her either, although there were moments when I almost felt sorry for her.

Poor Flo! The scandal attached to her past, when she had been still a girl, seemed to keep her isolated. Why had she come back here? I began to realize that in spite of Mark's eagerness to tell me as much as he knew, he never mentioned the feud or the Kordes family. And nobody else had mentioned it either. Had Mr. Bragg been exaggerating? I had met some of the SD cowboys, and recognized some of them by sight now. They would touch their hats politely when they saw me and explain whatever tasks they were engaged in if Mark pressed them. But everything seemed so peaceful! And I hadn't yet seen any of the fierce Indians I had been warned about.

Sometimes I felt that I had gone back into the past and was back in Jhanpur again. The climate here was very much the same, and even the fierce mountains that loomed like a gigantic backdrop in the distance looked familiar. Inconceivable that peril could lurk there! I began to think that all the stories I had heard before I'd come here had been figments of someone's overactive imagination. Wildly improbable tales, designed to put me off coming here, no doubt!

I thought darkly that Todd Shannon himself had probably started the rumors of violence and Indian attacks. There was no longer any feud, of course. How could there be? Hadn't I seen for myself just how powerful a man Shannon was, and how carefully the SD was guarded? He had enough men to form a small army. It was ridiculous to think that a man like Todd Shannon would fear anyone, and unthinkable that any man, no matter how reckless and vengeful, would dare to stand up against the might of the SD.

I had read Todd Shannon's character. Now, as the days passed, and I was constantly in his nephew's company, I began to have the feeling that Todd Shannon was only biding his time, waiting for something to happen. He was a dangerous, devious man, and he hadn't finished with me, nor I with him. What would transpire at our next meeting? In some strange way, I found myself waiting. This time, at least, he wouldn't catch me off guard. I would be ready.

It was Mark, though, who indirectly precipitated matters. He had been helping me sort out some legal papers that my father kept in a battered tin box. Railroad share certificates, shares in mines both in New Mexico and California. IOUs from men I had never heard of. All were jumbled together, filling the box almost to bursting. I had no idea how many of these documents were valuable and how many were completely worthless.

Mark was helpful, and I discovered that he had an extremely sharp legal mind. He should have stayed in Boston to practice law. Indeed, whenever he talked of it, and some of the cases he had handled, his voice became quite wistful.

We had become friends by now. Impulsively, I put my hand on his arm.

“Mark, that's what you really want to do, isn't it? Why are you here, then, wasting your time?”

There was an unusual, bitter twist to his lips when he met my eyes. “Because my uncle decided to make me his heir. You don't understand, Rowena. My mother has money of her own, and my father was an able lawyer. He was appointed a judge before he died. I always wanted to choose the law as my profession. But you see, there is the family obligation. And the money, of course; I'm no Sir Galahad!”

“But you said…”

“My mother is comfortably off, better off than most, I suppose. And I was making quite a good income following my chosen profession. All the same, how can any of it compare to what my uncle's share of the SD alone is worth? Don't you see, Rowena? He has no heirs! Someone has to take over some day. Your father chose you, and my uncle chose me.”

I wanted to burst out at him, tell him to follow his own inclinations, as long as they made him happy, but logic held me silent.

As he had pointed out, in a way we were both in the same predicament. Both here because it profited us to be.

“Will you have to live here always?” I asked Mark, and he gave a slight shrug, shaking his head.

“Not yet, thank God! No, I'm here to learn the ropes, and then I can go back to Boston. Maybe come back here for a few weeks of each year. You have the same alternative, of course. As long as you reside here for a whole year, your father's share of the ranch becomes yours with no further strings attached.” His voice became wry. “I suppose you'll spend your time traveling in Europe and appoint a manager to see to your interests here.”

We had both been sitting on the rug before the fireplace with the box of papers between us, and now I sat back on my heels.

“And why should you think that? I've already done my share of traveling in Europe. It's all too civilized there. This way of life is a challenge, don't you see? My father and your uncle were the groundbreakers, so to speak, but you and I, we'll be the ones to build something lasting. We'll watch a new century come in, if we're lucky enough!”

“You make me look at things so differently, do you know that! You should have been an orator, Rowena! And when you said ‘you and I' just now, I—”

Suddenly, his eyes shining, he leaned forward to catch my hands, taking me off-balance, so that I half fell against him. “Oh, Rowena, I'm sorry. I never meant—but I cannot help the way I've come to feel about you! Why, for God's sake, do you have to be so darned rich?”

“Why? What has that got to do with it?”

I pulled away from him frowning. I had not wanted this to happen. Certainly not a declaration which I would have to turn down and, in so doing, ruin what might have been a good friendship between us. I had tried to avoid a situation that might lead to such a declaration. But what had Mark meant by saying I was too rich?

“Rowena!” He reached for my hands again and succeeded in capturing one. “I only meant—well, as much as I care for you, I wouldn't want anyone to think that I would propose marriage to you merely to gain control of your fortune. Surely you see that?”

He continued to hold my hand, pressing it imploringly while his eyes searched my face for some reaction. “Rowena…”

“I could never think that you, of all people, would ever propose marriage to me with the motive of controlling my money. What a ridiculous idea!” I said forcibly. “But as for marriage,” I added quickly to forestall the words I saw forming themselves on his lips, “nothing could be further from my mind! I'm still in mourning for my father, even if I have ceased to dress the part, and I certainly think I should wait a few years before I commit myself to any such arrangement.”

“Arrangement!” He was staring at me with dismay showing in his eyes. “But Rowena, surely you did not think I was suggesting a convenient arrangement in order to join the SD under one management? It might be the sort of thing that my uncle would think of as a practical suggestion, but I'm not made that way. It is exactly for that reason that I can't ask you to marry me!”

“Well, then…”

“You don't understand. Rowena, I'm afraid I've fallen in love with you. You surely must have suspected it! I've never met a woman quite like you! Beautiful, intelligent, oh, God, what a mess I'm making of this!”

“Don't, Mark! Please, don't say any more, or you'll spoil everything. Our friendship—”

Despair showed in his kind, handsome face as he shook his head at me. “Friendship! You'll always have that and anything else you ask of me. But I'd hoped, and yet, how could I be so presumptuous? You've lived among the aristocracy of England. I'm sure you've received innumerable proposals of marriage from men far richer and more eligible than I. Please forgive me.”

“Mark! Will you please stop talking that way? It's not that at all. Only that I—I'm not ready for marriage yet. Or love, for that matter.” I pulled my hand from his grasp and looked at him severely. “You're infatuated with me. You know as well as I do that I'm probably the only eligible female in these parts, and so, when we were thrown into each other's company…”

“How logical you make it all sound,” he said bitterly. “And yet, in spite of all your logic, I think you're only avoiding the issue. I'm no green boy, you know, and I've had my share of affairs of the heart. Do you think I don't realize the real thing when I've found it? I've already told you that you were different from any woman I've ever met before. What did you think I meant?”

I think he noticed the growing dismay on my face, for his voice softened. “Don't look so upset! I wouldn't worry you for the world, nor do anything to spoil our relationship. I love you, Rowena. But I promise not to pester you with my declarations of love again unless you indicate to me that they may be welcome. And in the meantime, please remember that if you ever need anything, you have only to tell me.”

“Thank you,” I managed. But what on earth could I say more than that? I almost wished that I could have cared more for Mark. And yet, the very next day, I was angry with him.

He rode over in the morning, looking rather sheepish, to inform me that I had been invited to dinner at the big house—the
palacio,
as Marta had described it.

“Oh, so he's decided to acknowledge my existence, has he? Naturally I refuse!”

“Rowena, please. You and Uncle Todd can't just go on avoiding each other. I assure you that he's promised to be on his best behavior tonight. I wish you would agree to come, even if it's only to show my uncle that he hasn't frightened you with his exhibition of rudeness!”

I looked at Mark narrowly, but his face was bland, faintly smiling. Perhaps he, too, was cleverer than I thought! Certainly it seemed as if he were deliberately teasing me into accepting this sudden dinner invitation.

“Your uncle's probably up to something,” I said bluntly.

“No doubt he is! But you might as well find out now as later, don't you think? I know Uncle Todd. Once his bluff is called he'll settle down, you'll see. I wish you'd come, Rowena. If you'll forgive my saying so, it's high time you learned more about your responsibilities as half owner of the SD.”

His voice had become stern, almost brotherly. So he had got over his passion for me so quickly, had he? Still, Mark did have a point. I couldn't go on this way forever.

I sighed resignedly. “Very well, Mark. I'll come. But only if you promise to escort me there, and to bring me home whenever I want to leave.”

I was suddenly intrigued. So Todd Shannon thought to summon me to the royal presence, did he? After a suitable period of ignoring me, of course. We'd see who came out the victor in this encounter!

It took me several hours, and Marta's help, to prepare myself. And then, as I looked at myself in the mirror and heard Marta's admiring gasp, I couldn't help smiling wickedly back at my reflection.

Thanks to the estimable Mr. Worth in Paris and Cartier in New York, I certainly looked the part of an English duchess this evening.

The gown I had chosen to wear was a deep, midnight blue velvet, cut low in front, with tiny strips of crisscross material to hold it up on my shoulders. Generous folds of the rich material were swathed tightly around my hips, ending in a fashionable bustle behind. I wore silver gloves that came just above my elbows, and silver kid shoes with tiny diamanté buttons.

And my jewels, of course, were diamonds. I had never forgotten what Sir Edgar had told me that night.

Marta, her hands clasped together, eyes wide, muttered in excitable Spanish that I looked like a
princesa
with the diamond stars in my elaborately coiffured hair. But I must be sure to wear a cloak, to protect my gown and cover my hair. She crossed herself as she murmured something about bandits.

“Nonsense! This is the American side of the border. And Señor Mark will be coming for me, no doubt with an escort of cowboys.”

But I suddenly realized that I was seldom allowed to ride far from the house without an armed escort. Even Mark carried a handgun, and when I had teased him about it, he'd shrugged and told me that his uncle insisted upon it. And yet, I had never seen any of the Apache Indians they all seemed so afraid of, nor any strangers who might be outlaws.

“It will be dark when you return,” Marta said ominously, as she brought me my long, sable-trimmed evening cloak. Standing back to inspect me after I had obligingly put it on, she suddenly broke into smiles again and shrugged philosophically. “The señorita is very beautiful. No doubt the señor will think so too. And they would not harm our patron's daughter. He was a man who was much loved, your father.”

“They?” I turned from the mirror to look at her questioningly. “Surely, Marta, you don't really believe that any member of the Kordes family would dare show their faces on SD land?”

Her lips tightened. “They say that this land should be theirs. Your father knew this and he would have helped them regain it if he could. When the señor Lucas used to live here, they would talk of it for many hours. And once, not long before your father died, he came back here with his brother Ramon. It was at night of course, very late.”