The Wildest Heart (47 page)

“If none of it is true, then tell me so! If you can explain…”

He cut me off coldly. “Explain what? All those crazy accusations you been throwing at me this evening or what happened just now? No, I'm damned if I will. Ever since the first time we met, you've been judging me, judging everyone else. It's time you did some figuring out for yourself, Ro. An' while you're doing that, better take a good look at yourself too. There ain't a human being in this world who's perfect, an' at least I never asked that or expected it from you. But you set yourself above everybody, make your own conclusions… what gives you that right?”

I stared at him, one hand pressed against my throat to fight off the sick, cold feeling that had been rising in me with every word he had spoken. Was it true? Was that how he really saw me?

I shook my head as if to refute my own thoughts. “No… that's not true, you're not being fair…”

“Like you've been?” His voice was just as cold, just as merciless and I shrank from it. And still I couldn't keep silent.

“All I wanted was some answers! That's not being unreasonable, is it? Is it?” To my mortification, I felt tears start to slip down my face.

“Ro…” his voice sounded tired, “I gave you some answers once. But it didn't do no good, did it? No matter what I tell you, you'd start doubting me again as soon as I'm gone. Seems to me the best thing for us both is for me to get the hell out of your life an' stay out of it from now on. An' that's just what I aim to do.”

The tears had turned into silent, gulping sobs that seemed to be wrenched out of me. I set my teeth in my lower lip, biting down so hard that I tasted blood.

“But why did you come here tonight?
Why
?”

Lucas was already at the door, but he turned to give me a long look before he shrugged.

“That ain't important now. Call it a crazy notion I had.”

What I had really wanted to say was “Don't leave me!” but now it was too late. I had asked my question and he had chosen not to answer it. Perhaps he felt I didn't deserve an answer.

I thought I heard him say in a low voice, “I'm sorry, Ro.”

And then the door closed behind him and on a part of my life, and I was lying back in bed with the sobs choking me, wishing I could die.

I was so wrapped up in my own misery that I did not wonder why Lucas had chosen to go through the house instead of using the trapdoor, until Marta came to me, her face creased with worry.

I could only look at her, incapable of speech, seeing her as a blur through tear-swollen eyes, and then, as if I had been a child needing comfort she put her arms around me, rocking me against her.

I heard her murmuring in Spanish: “Cry, cry, it is good for you… ah,
pobrecita!
I know how hard it is to be a woman, it hurts, no?” Her soothing voice hardened slightly as she said: “Men! They are without understanding, they are all selfish! I told him so. I said, ‘Why did you come here like a
ladron,
like an Apache who must hide in the night, if it was only to leave her again? She has been troubled enough, with the patron coming here to shout and threaten and try to frighten her, and Mr. Mark making her cry with the ideas he puts in her head.' Si, I have never been one to mince words with him, and Lucas knows this.”

I twisted my head around to look up at her, wondering why I was not surprised at her words. Of course Marta and Jules must have suspected the truth right along! They too must have heard the rumors, and no doubt my manner since I had returned had confirmed everything.

With no more need for pretense I asked, in a voice so hoarse I could hardly recognize it as my own, “He's… really gone?”

She began to smooth my hair awkwardly, her head nodding.

“Si, he has gone. Jules called to the men who guard outside, offering them coffee. He could not sleep, he told them. And while they were busy,
he
left. As quietly as if he had been Apache himself. Don't worry; he knows how to take care of himself, that one. He asked me to look after you,” she added in a slightly softened tone. “‘Go to her, Marta,' he said, and only shook his head when I scolded him for upsetting you. ‘She may feel unhappy for a little while, perhaps, but later she will understand that it was for the best.'
Madre de Dios,
there are times when I think that it is men who understand nothing!”

I cannot remember if I slept again that night or not. I cried myself into a semistupor, in spite of all Marta's attempts to comfort me. And the next morning, when I managed to drag myself out of bed at last, to study my tear-swollen, almost unrecognizable face in the mirror, I was suddenly swept with such waves of nausea that I could only clutch at the edge of my dressing table and moan like a sick animal.

Marta, who had gone to fetch a basin of cold water with which to bathe my eyes, came running to me; holding my head, smoothing the tangled hair back from my brow while I retched violently, unable to help myself. I did not need to meet her eyes afterward to read there, in her pitying look, the confirmation of something I had suspected already.

“I'm pregnant.”

I saw Mark's face whiten with shock at the uncompromising bluntness of my statement. He had come to see me straight after his return from Las Cruces, and the first thing he had noticed was the redness of my eyes, my rather distracted manner. When he asked me directly what was wrong, I saw no point in evasion.

“My God! Rowena, are you sure?”

I had looked down, for a moment, at my clasped hands. Only the whiteness of my knuckles showing my inner agitation. And when I looked up I thought I had imagined the strange, fleeting look in Mark's blue eyes. His face showed nothing but concern for me as he leaned forward. “Are you sure?” he repeated, and then when I nodded his voice grew firmer and harder than I had ever heard it before.

“Then there's only one thing to be done. Surely you can see that for yourself?”

“Mark…” the mood of apathy into which I had relapsed had dulled my senses, and I could not think what he meant until he had taken my hands and was saying strongly:

“We shall be married. As soon as possible. No, Rowena, you must not argue with me. It is the only solution—for your own sake, and the sake of… of the child you are carrying. For your protection.”

I did argue with him, of course. But he demolished every argument I could offer. I must think of my future and the future of my unborn child. I did not want to think about Lucas, who had given me no answers and no explanations, and who, in his way, had been much more pitiless before he walked so casually out of my life. And, worst thought of all, suppose the child I was carrying was Ramon's? Lucas had turned his back on me, but Mark had not. Mark loved me enough to accept me as I was, with all my shortcomings, and in spite of my embarrassing condition.

He was right, there
was
no other way. I had to accept the fact that I lived in a man's world, and a pregnant woman without a husband, even if she was enormously rich and titled, would be ostracized wherever she went. This was something I could not run away from, and I had brought it on myself.

I was grateful to Mark, during the days that followed, both for his surprising strength of character, which I had not realized before, and for his kindness and tact. Once I had bowed to the inevitable, I found it easier to let Mark make the decisions for us both.

We would be married in three days' time, and go to Boston for our honeymoon. And then we would return to New Mexico. Mark was adamant that I should lose no part of my inheritance.

“It's what your father would have wanted, Rowena,” he said gently, and I could not find the strength nor the words to argue with him, especially when he added that he had, in fact, made contact with Jesus Montoya who had promised to have news for us by the time we returned.

“Of course he demands far too much money for whatever information he can give us,” Mark said grimly, “but I did not think you would mind.” No, I did not mind. I let Mark take charge of everything, and moved through the time I had left in a kind of daze, as if I was dreaming everything that happened. It was this state of mind that helped me to a short, but extremely unpleasant interview, with Todd Shannon.

He was furious, disbelieving, and contemptuous in turn. And in spite of my mood of cold remoteness I could not help but be proud of the way Mark stood up to his wrath.

“Rowena is going to marry me, and that's that. You might as well get used to the fact, for we are going to be neighbors—and partners, Uncle Todd, whether you like the thought or not. I won't allow you to intimidate her any longer. She has the right to make her own decisions.”

“She's nothing but a…” Todd did not choose to mince his words, in spite of Mark's angry protests. I was unmoved, even when his ugly, narrowed eyes bored into me. “You're a damn fool, an' a weakling, Mark! If she's been carrying on with you behind my back, what's to prevent her doing it again? You going to take that Injun's leavings? Or…” and his voice sharpened, “is it that you've got her breeding? You sure you know whose brat she's carrying?”

It was only for Mark's sake that I did not blurt out the truth. But perhaps there was something showing in my eyes which made Todd Shannon throw back his head and laugh—an ugly, mocking sound.

“That's it, I'll bet! My noble nephew. Or mebbe you're just smarter than I gave you credit for. This way you'll get half of the ranch without waiting for me to die, an' you can run for governor with all that money she'll be bringing you. Ain't that what you always planned on?” His raucous laughter jarred on my ears again. “By God—maybe you're more of a Shannon than I thought, after all!”

His laughter followed us as Mark hurried me outside.

“Rowena!”

I shook my head at him. “No, Mark. There's no need to say anything. Do you think I don't know what he's like? It doesn't matter… he had to say something, don't you see?”

But it was only my earlier training, under Edgar Cardon's tutelage, that enabled me to make some pretense of responding when Mark took me in his arms and showered kisses on my face and throat

“Wait—
por Dios,
if you will only wait—a few weeks, a few days…” Marta pleaded with me. Her manner since that night had become almost motherly, and she had stopped her infuriating habit of referring to me as la patrona. “He will come back. I know he loves you; how can he help it? Men are stubborn sometimes.” But I couldn't wait, any more than I could bear to disillusion her.

Lucas wouldn't come back. He was with Elena, back where he had always belonged, and I knew this, although I did not tell Marta so. And in one thing, at least, Lucas had been right. We belonged in different worlds, he and I, and in spite of the fact that I could not help loving him and yearning for him I had, at the same time, to accept the fact that I could never trust in him again. There was too much evidence that pointed at him, too many unexplained incidents that taken together added up to damning proof. I had to put him out of my mind, and that was all there was to it. As for the child I carried within me, it was not yet a reality, nothing more than another uncomfortable, unpleasant fact that I had to face.

The days passed far too fast. Marta helped me to pack, in spite of her constant, muttered protests, and before I had time to get used to the idea, Mark and I were married by a justice of the peace in Kingston, with strangers as our witnesses, and had begun our journey back to civilization.

It seemed strange, to be retracing the journey I had made with such anticipation only months ago. Even stranger to realize that I was married, a gold band on my finger marking my changed station in life. There were changes in me too, and in Mark, although looking back now I find it difficult to fix on a particular time, a particular day when I first noticed these changes. Perhaps this was because I was too busy with trying to keep my mind free of unpleasant and hurtful thoughts. I remember that once or twice Mark mentioned laughingly that once we had stopped traveling he would have to tear down the wall I had erected about myself. On my part, I preferred not to look too far into the future, not back at the past. To live one day at a time was enough for me. Or so I thought then.

When, on our wedding night, Mark only kissed me tenderly at the door to our room and told me I must get the rest I needed, for we would be leaving early in the morning, I put it down to a further example of his consideration and love for me. I even felt a pang of guilt that my first reaction was a feeling of relief. Mark and I had been friends for too long for either of us to be able to adjust easily to the fact that he now had all the rights of a husband. But as I lay in bed that night, willing myself to fall asleep quickly, I remember telling myself firmly I must make an effort to be a good wife to Mark—to feign my responses when he finally took me, if that would make him happy.

However, it was not until we had reached Socorro that Mark made any attempt to claim his conjugal privileges, and it was on that same night that I realized I had married a man with depths to his character I had not even suspected.

I am getting ahead of myself. Even now I wonder why I did not see certain things that were before my eyes, and why, during the painfully slow days of traveling it took us to arrive in Socorro, I did not question the fact that my husband of only a few days had not yet frequented my bed, but seemed content with a few kisses and almost absentminded caresses. Consideration for my condition and the sickness that plagued me almost constantly? Or infinite patience? Easy to ask myself that later. At the time I was only grateful, when I was not too ill to care. I had always prided myself on my strong constitution and excellent health. Like most people who are not used to sickness I began to despise what I looked upon as weakness, in between bouts of acute misery. I even wished, fiercely, that I might miscarry. Anything would be better than the embarrassment of this constant reminder of a time in my life that I was trying to forget. Why couldn't I be like the peasant women in India, who never had a day's sickness in their lives, and would go back into the fields to work the day after they had given birth?

“It's because you're not a peasant but a lady,” Mark said. He had entered my bedroom from the adjoining room where he had spent our wedding night, to find me only half-dressed, and trying to fight back the nausea that threatened to choke me.

When I protested that I would be all right in a little while and refused to be the cause of delaying our journey he shook his head at me, a slight smile on his lips.

“That's nonsense, of course. You must realize, my dearest, that we have all the time in the world. Now go back to bed and lie down, and I will make some other arrangements.” He had never taken such a decisive tone with me before, and I surprised myself by obeying him weakly.

It was almost noon when we set out, and the “arrangements” Mark had made were to hire our own coach and round up an escort of hard-bitten men who looked eminently capable of using the guns they wore.

I was feeling better by then, if a trifle limp. I roused myself to ask Mark, “But how did you manage to do all this in such a short time?”

He smiled at me. “One of the advantages of all the traveling around my uncle forced me to do. I met a lot of people, some of them useful. In fact, it was the owner of the saloon where they gave me a bachelor party last night who arranged everything for me.” He gave me an apologetic look. “You don't mind? I could see how tired you seemed and did not want to disturb you, so I played some poker with friends, and when they found out I had just been married, well…” he spread his hands, “they insisted there must be a celebration.”

I accepted what he told me, just as I learned to accept the fact that the man who drove our coach swore constantly and spat long streams of tobacco juice that splattered the sides of the vehicle as it swerved and swayed around bends and jounced over every rock on the trail.

“Must he drive so fast and so recklessly?” I said once, and Mark patted my hand, looking at me a trifle reproachfully. “He's one of the best, they told me. And this is the way they all drive here. You'll learn not to notice it, after a while.”

After that I made no more protests. In fact, I became too tired and sleepy after a while to care. And that night too, I slept alone in a hastily procured hotel room, while Mark said he would go downstairs and “join the boys” for awhile.

I told myself it was my fault that the journey to Socorro took almost four days instead of two. My fault that we were so late starting out every day. And I continued to be grateful to Mark for his forbearance.

We always took adjoining rooms, and since I had begun to sleep heavily and exhaustedly, I had no idea what time he came up to bed at night. But he had taken to coming in in the mornings, to watch me dress, and although this habit of his made me feel strangely ill at ease, I said nothing. He was, after all, my husband, and the sooner I got used to the idea the better. I learned not to flinch when he came up behind me in the mirror and ran his fingers caressingly over the bare flesh of my shoulders and arms.

“You're beautiful, Rowena. If you only knew what it means to know that you are mine at last. My wife.”

Mark's hands were always cool, with no rough calluses to burn my skin. Sometimes I felt that he caressed me quite impersonally, as one would a statue, or a prized possession. Once, as if he had read my mind, he smiled at me in the mirror, bending to kiss my neck as he said softly, “Is it a sin to admire perfection? You have the perfect body, my darling. So slim. So firm. I would like to have a statue done of you, in the finest marble. In the nude of course—does that shock you? A body like yours needs no coy draperies.” And while he talked he slid the robe I had been wearing off my shoulders and began to stroke my breasts, very gently.

I think what made me vaguely uncomfortable was the way he kept watching me in the mirror—first my eyes, and then his hands on my breasts, stroking across each nipple until they stood upright. I broke away with a smothered cry, wondering why I had done so.

“Mark, I…”

“You're too modest, Rowena. Surely there's nothing wrong with a husband admiring his wife's nakedness?”