The Wildest Heart (31 page)

I moaned under the onslaught of his kisses. I forgot the pain in my hand and the bandages that Luz had so carefully wrapped round it as my fingers ripped at his shirt until I felt his bare, warm flesh under my hands. I wanted him, and it was a terrifying feeling, to realize I could feel such lust for a man.

What devil had seized us both, I know that
he
felt it too. His body lay against mine, and I felt the heat and weight of his desire as he moved over me.

His lips moved from my mouth to my eyes, crushing them closed, and then to my earlobes. His whisper sounded like a curse.

“Bruja!”
he called me. “Witch!” And yet I felt that it was I who was bewitched, until his lips took mine again and I went beyond thinking.

It was Lucas who proved to be the stronger one of us on that hot, sunlit afternoon when the Dangerfield devil, that “taint in the blood” made me forget everything else but the impulses of my body.

After he had pulled himself away from me abruptly, leaving me gasping with the shock of my return to reality, I heard Elena's cool, amused laughter drifting up through the open window. She was talking to someone, but I hardly heard what she said. The sound of my own breathing seemed far too loud, and I was bitterly, angrily ashamed of myself.

Lucas was staring down at me, but I couldn't read the expression in his eyes, for his back was to the window and the sunlight that streamed through it, yellowing the floor. I began to have some idea of how I must look to him—my lips swollen and bruised from the force of his kisses, my hair in tangles, my blouse slipping off my shoulders. I must have looked like a woman dazed with desire, and I hated myself for it and hated him most of all.

“Rowena…” There was a strange, almost apologetic note in his voice, but by now I was too angry, too humiliated to wonder at it.

“Well? Do you see how easy it is to find consolation in a woman's kisses? Did I make you forget
her
for a little while?”

My voice sounded high and forced, but I saw his lips tighten and knew that I had made him angry again, and I was glad! For now perhaps he would not recognize my shameful betrayal of myself for what it had been. Weakness. Wanting.

“You really enjoy playin' games with people, don't you?” His voice was hard, contemptuous. “Where'd you learn all the tricks of a teasin' whore? Was it from Shannon, or his Eastern nephew? An' what were you tryin' to prove, anyhow?”

My face burned, my whole body still felt hot and weak with reaction. But I forced a smile.

“Why are you angry? I was only trying to help you, you know. By proving that one woman is very much like another, given the right time and the right circumstances. You should marry Luz and make her happy.”

“Christ almighty!” he exploded, his face dark with suppressed anger. “What kind of female are you? You look and act so cold sometimes, and yet you can feel so warm.”

“Why must it surprise you that a woman can be just as devious and scheming as a man can be? Why does it always shock a man to find out that a woman can play his own game and beat him at it?”

“I haven't been playin' at any games, damn you!”

The bewildered frustration in his voice shook me for a moment, but I couldn't show it. “But then, what
were
you playing at? I know you wanted me, Lucas, but what else? Have you fallen in love with me? Would you want to marry me and control my fortune? Can you forget Elena so easily?”

His voice had quieted. Perhaps I had given myself away.

“No, I can't forget her. Don't you see that? She's as much a part of me as breathing. You wanted to know the truth, an' I gave it to you. Elena will always be a part of me, and of my life, as long as I stay alive. But I can want another woman, and I want you. Not your damn money, nor even your half of the SD. Is that enough for you? For God's sake, what do you want of me?”

“Nothing!” I flung the word at him. I had to hurt him in order to protect myself and my own vulnerability.

“What would I want with another woman's property? I'll never be content with second-best, Lucas Cord!”

“I don't think you know what loving is. You're the kind of woman who would give a man enough to keep him crawlin' to you for more, and use him until he lost his use.”

“Is Elena any different?”

“Elena is a
woman,
for God's sake! She's suffered. She feels. She's not like you, needin' to experiment with feelings.”

“How blind you are!”

He said in a flat, hard voice: “I don't care to hear any more. An' you better listen good to what I'm saying. You've been nothing but a troublemaker since you've been here, and I'm warning you now to stop interfering! You've had enough time to choose, and you can damn well make your choice right now. Marry Ramon an' go away with him, or go away with Julio and live with him as his second wife.”

“Are you leaving yourself out on purpose? Or just for the last?”

“Just for the last. You stay here, I'm goin' to do what I should have done a long time ago. Take you. But don't look for any marriage from me. Ain't been a woman yet I haven't tired of after I've had her. An' when I'm through with you, I'll let Shannon know where you are, an' make him pay a ransom for gettin' you back. Mebbe a trifle shopworn, but good enough for him!”

The slamming of the door hurt my ears. But I had time to compose myself before Ramon came upstairs to see me, his face drawn with anger and hurt

“Rowena! If you only knew how worried I've been! But my mother said it was Lucas you wanted to speak to, and I—” he had started to pace about the room, I had never seen him so tense and angry. “I didn't know what to think! Rowena, I must know. I'm sure you have sensed that I have come to care for you—more than that—to love you. And I have only held back because of the circumstances of your coming here. I did not want you to think… Oh, God! I don't even know what I am saying any longer. I had planned what I would say to you when the time was right, when I thought you were ready to listen. But now, I—what did he say to you? What has he done to you? If he's touched you, I swear that I'll kill him, brother or not!”

“There is no need for that. Lucas and I argued, as usual. And he gave me an ultimatum. A very difficult one, I'm afraid, because you haven't proposed to me yet, Ramon. Do you intend to?”

It was so easy because Ramon was in love with me. I had decided to be sensible. I would marry Ramon, if I had to, and leave the hidden valley. And after all, why not Ramon, if I must marry some man? Todd Shannon was too strong, too overbearing. Mark had never asked me to marry him. Ramon would do.

I did not even blush for myself at the time. And that night at dinner I accepted Elena's smiling toast and Julio's sullen good wishes. Lucas, I learned, had taken Luz with him and gone riding.

“But of course it's high time he paid some attention to the poor child,” Elena said. Her voice was smooth, displaying nothing but pleasure. “Tomorrow we will all celebrate.”

“Don't count on me!” Julio said in a surly voice, pushing his chair back. “I plan to return to my home and my people tomorrow.”

It was Ramon who carried me up the shallow stairs to my room that night, in spite of my protests that I was quite capable of walking, that it was only my fingers that I had cut and not my feet.

Elena overruled me. While Ramon had left the room to fetch another bottle of wine she leaned across the table, still smiling.

“You must let the poor boy have his way. Surely you realize its just an excuse to hold you in his arms?” She sighed. “My Ramon has always been such a gentleman! Sometimes I have wondered if it wasn't a mistake to let the Jesuit fathers bring him up, but my husband insisted. You must not think that Ramon hasn't had his share of women, you understand? But he had always been too shy and too gentle, perhaps, with those he really respected.”

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow interrogatively, wondering what she was getting at. “You make me wonder if all your sons are not far too fond of women, after all.”

“My sons are men, but when it comes to marriage there is a difference. Ramon was quite infatuated by your beauty from the very first time he set eyes on you. He could talk of nothing else. And since then, of course, you have made him fall in love with you.”

“How very convenient for us both!” I could not help the slight note of sarcasm that crept into my voice, but it only seemed to amuse Elena.

“Of course! Ramon is an idealist. For all that he respected your father, and knew of
my
wishes, I don't think he would have agreed to marry you if he had not fallen in love with you.”

“Heavens! Do you mean that that would have left me with a choice between Lucas and Julio? For I'm sure that
my
inclinations would not have been taken into account under any circumstances. Tell me, if I had not had the bad fortune to travel on that particular stagecoach, how would this—this marriage my father is supposed to have arranged for me have been contrived?”

Elena's look was mock-reproachful.

“But Rowena, surely you do not doubt my word, or that of
my
father the shaman of his people? If fate had not brought you here, it would have been arranged in some other fashion. But you would still have been given the choice to make up your own mind. You do not feel
forced
into a decision, do you?”

Her dark eyes fixed themselves on mine with an unreadable glow that made me wonder just how much she knew of the strange, tension-fraught interlude that had taken place between Lucas and myself.

I smiled faintly. “I'm sure that all women are forced into certain actions at some time or other in their lives—don't you agree? But in my case I have always been lucky enough to end up having my own way in the end.”

Ramon came back at that moment, and our conversation turned smoothly from the intimate vein it had taken to more general matters. Elena said that she could see no reason why we should delay our marriage for too long. Ramon looked questioningly and rather diffidently at me, and I, determined that Elena must see I would not allow her to run
my
life, said primly that I thought we should discuss our marriage plans later.

“After all, we have just become engaged. I think we both need time to get used to
that
idea first!” I looked at Ramon, as if for support, and not at Elena, and he flushed with pleasure and pride as he agreed with me. I had the feeling that he would agree with almost anything I suggested to him, if I was tactful enough.

Ramon carried me up to bed in his arms, and kissed me gently but possessively on the lips before he left me there.

“Please, Rowena, you must believe that I do not wish you to feel forced into anything you do not desire. I love you, and I swear I will never be anything but gentle and patient with you, whatever you wish me to be.”

Ramon was frank, open, and honest in his love for me. I knew that he believed me to be a virgin, and that this only added to his almost worshipful adoration of me. He was gentle, he was considerate, and he treated me as if I was fragile—something that not even Todd Shannon had done. I told myself that it might not be too uncomfortable an arrangement, especially since I had no other choice in the matter.

I told myself all this as I lay awake that night, watching the pale moonlight stream in through the windows, touching the blanket I had covered myself with, and casting barred shadows on Luz's empty bed in the other half of the room.

No, I told myself. I would not wonder where Lucas had taken her, or what they were doing out so late. And yet the moonlight made me restless enough to leave my bed and go to my window, and I saw the glow of a lamp in Elena's room as well. The thought that she too sat up and wondered gave me a spiteful satisfaction. I had already recognized her as a strong woman, and I could neither like nor trust her, for all her artful flattery of me, and her pretended consideration. Still, even she had her weakness, and it made me feel that my newly gained knowledge put me at a slight advantage.

I turned over in bed, feeling again the unpleasant sickness in the pit of my stomach that always came when I thought of the strangely incestuous relationship that existed between her and Lucas. I blamed her most, but I blamed him too. His father's wife… and still he lusted after her without shame, using other women to satisfy his passing needs while he left her upon her pedestal. I hated myself for what I had done this afternoon, and above all, for my response to his kisses. And I hated him for his threat—the “ultimatum” he had given me. Desire—no, lust described it better—was an ugly thing to be feared and avoided. A thing that made slaves of men and women. Was that how my mother had ended up in Edgar Cardon's bed? “I love him!” she had told me. “It is something that
you
could never understand.” Why had she called it love? What was love but lust dressed up in pretty words and phrases?

I was still awake when Luz came back, tiptoeing into the room with her shoes carried in her hand. I didn't know what time it was, but the moon had risen in the sky and no longer fell across our beds. I heard her fling herself down, and thought she sobbed softly.

In the morning, her face was sullen, and her eyes swollen.

“Luz? You look tired, and my hand doesn't hurt at all this morning. Why don't you stay in bed and let me help downstairs?”

“If I do not keep busy I think… oh, what is the use? You cannot possibly understand! I was so happy last night when he asked me to go riding with him in the moonlight, and then..,”

Her voice shook, and I knew I should leave her alone, but I could not forbear from prompting her.

“And then…?”

“Then—nothing! We rode, we talked, but it was I, as usual, who did most of the talking. He kissed me, after we had dismounted and lay side by side in the grass. And I thought this time, surely! This time he will go further than kisses, and I will let him, and later we will be married… but you know? Nothing! Sometimes I wonder why he took me from Montoya and brought me here! Sometimes I feel that
she
has taken all his manhood from him! I am a woman too, and more of a woman than she is, but he does not see me as one! At least—oh, God, at least Jesus Montoya saw me as one!”

I was alarmed at the high flush in her cheeks, and at the almost desperately angry note that had crept into her voice.

“You don't know what you're saying!” I said sharply. “I'm sure Lucas holds back because he respects you.'”