Amelia (10 page)

"I'll be right along," Amelia said, escaping from what she knew was coming. Mrs. Culhane's dislike of Darcy was apparently growing by the day.

On the porch, Darcy was watching the horizon while King smoked his cigar.

"I do wish you wouldn't smoke," she muttered irritably. "I hate the smell of those nasty things!"

"Sit somewhere else," he invited lazily, smiling at her impatience.

She settled herself like a martyr. "I shall simply have to bear it for the pleasure of sitting close to you."

If that was pleasure, he'd have hated to see pain. She was as stiff as a board, obviously finding him as distasteful as the cigar but determined to put up a good front. It had disturbed her to see him holding Amelia's hand. She was jealous and determined to show him that she was a better bet than the other girl in the matrimonial stakes.

King knew that already, and he was certain that he didn't want to marry Amelia Howard. But on the other hand, Amelia's hand felt just right in his. There was strength in it, but softness as well. He remembered her soft little palm under his mouth and the look of compassion in her brown eyes when he'd been hurt. It disturbed him to remember it.

He caught a glimpse of Amelia coming toward the door, to call them in to the noon meal, no doubt. Did she think she had him in her grasp, he wondered? Was she seeing him as a possible matrimonial prospect? He couldn't risk that, not when he was so vulnerable toward her.

Without counting the cost, he flipped the cigar out into the dust and abruptly bent, dragging a shocked Darcy up to him. He kissed her with every indication of true passion for the benefit of the woman standing, shocked, in the doorway. He felt absolutely nothing, but that wasn't how it looked to Amelia, or to Darcy when he lifted his head.

"Why, King, how impetuous you are! You'll rumple me!" she complained coyly.

His eyes had flashed to the doorway in time to see Amelia turn and move quickly back the way she'd come. That should get the message across, he thought.

He got to his feet and pulled Darcy up. "Come. They must have it on the table. I thought I saw Miss Howard at the door."

"Did you, indeed?" Darcy was smiling coldly. "I hope she wasn't too embarrassed," she lied.

King didn't reply. He took her arm and led her into the house. His face was as unreadable as stone.

«
^
»

 

I
t was the worst Sunday Amelia could ever remember. Darcy stayed late, so that it was after dark when King drove her home. Amelia made a point of sticking to Enid when he came back, and very shortly after that she went to bed without even looking at him. Witnessing that kiss had destroyed some fantasies in bud. If he wanted to kill her interest in him, he was doing a good job. Amelia was cut to the quick by his attitude. She withdrew into herself and made a religion of staying out of his way.

Instead of placating him, however, her pointed avoidance made him wild. He hated having her look past him or stare at his shirt instead of meeting his eyes. He knew that he'd brought on her shy withdrawal. He'd thought it was what he wanted. Now, he wasn't sure anymore. Every time he looked at her, his heart ached. If only her father would come back and take her home, take her out of his life, so that he could come to grips with the temptation she presented! He wanted no part of such an unaccomplished, dull, spineless woman!

Two nights later, he finished early on the ranch and came in to have supper with the women. It was a quiet meal, and afterward he joined them in the parlor while they did needlework. He rattled his newspaper as he read it. The front page was full of news about the Boer War and how it was progressing. There was another story about a man who was scheduled to be hanged soon in New Mexico territory for shooting a man in a drunken spree. He could hardly keep his mind on the paper with Amelia sitting across from him, her slender body in its lacy garment making him hungry for the feel of it in his arms.

"Your father should be home soon," Enid remarked to King. "He said two weeks, and it's been almost that."

Amelia's face paled. She hadn't realized, in her fool's paradise, that it was so close to the time of her departure from the ranch and a resumption of her father's tyranny. She missed the stitch she was putting into her embroidery pattern and hit her finger accidentally. She winced and stuck her finger in her mouth to stem the flow of blood.

"Are you looking forward to being in your own home again, Amelia?" Mrs. Culhane asked.

"It isn't a home so much as a suite," Amelia confessed. "Father is going to buy a house soon, but we have three rooms in Mrs. Spindle's house right now. It's very nice. She cooks for us as well, and her rents are very reasonable."

"I've lived here all my married life," Enid recalled. "When Brant and I were first married, his father had just finished building this house. We had the rooms that King occupies now." Her eyes sparkled in memory. "Half the people in the territory came to see us married, in the same Methodist church we attended this morning." She glanced up at her son. "You'll be married there as well, I assume."

"When I marry," he said stiltedly.

"Darcy wants a big church wedding, does she not?" she persisted.

He didn't want to talk about Darcy. He put his paper aside. "I haven't any definite plans," he said firmly.

Enid lifted an eyebrow. "I thought it was all settled. Darcy speaks as if it is. She had some very firm ideas about how she wants my home remodeled," she added without looking at him.

King let out a rough breath. He'd suspected that Darcy had upset his mother. He glanced at Amelia, but her impassive face gave away nothing of her inner feelings. Whatever Darcy had said to her, if anything, it had made no apparent impression. He wondered if anything ever did. She was almost completely without emotion. Until he touched her, he thought arrogantly.

"We can discuss such things later," King murmured. He glared at Amelia, then stood up. "Come for a walk, Amelia. You can do needlepoint anytime. I want to show you something."

She didn't move. After the explosive attraction between them had flared Saturday evening and then again Sunday morning, she had no wish to be alone with him.

"Do go, Amelia," Enid prompted without looking up from her needlepoint. "The exercise will do you good, and the first roses are blooming. I think the darkness heightens their fragrance."

"Very well." She put down her embroidery and went along with King, aware of his tall presence beside her as she'd rarely been aware of anything.

The garden was full of flowers, and two of the rosebushes were in bud. One rose had just bloomed out. It was white and easily seen in the darkness that was lit only by the windows of the house and a crescent moon.

"You have avoided me since Sunday," he said without preamble.

"Mr. Culhane…"

He caught her arm, firmly but not hurtfully, and brought her to stand in front of him. His silver eyes searched her face in the dim light. "Say my name."

Her breath was strangling her. His touch unsettled her. "King," she whispered.

"My name, Amelia," he emphasized gruffly. "You know it, don't you?"

She swallowed. It sounded strange in her mouth as she forced it out. "Jeremiah," she said softly, looking up.

Ripples of pleasure made their way through him. He'd never liked his given name until he heard it on Amelia's lips. It sounded different.

"Is Amelia your only name?" he asked curiously.

"Amelia Bernadette," she whispered.

"Amelia Bernadette." He pictured a little girl with blond hair and big brown eyes as he said it, and his thoughts made him restless. He was only thirty. Why should he suddenly think of a family?

"Shouldn't we go back in?" she asked quickly.

"Not until you tell me why I frightened you," he replied quietly.

"You are like my father," she blurted out. "You must have it all your own way, yet you have no respect for any creature that you can grind under your heel."

"Yet you allow your father to make such a creature of you, do you not?" he asked mockingly. "You are the very picture of an obedient child in his presence."

"You do not understand," she said in a haunted tone.

"I know that you dislike your father," he replied. "And while he is overbearing, and not very kind to
animals, he is nevertheless your father. You owe him respect. I only object to the way you cower when he speaks to you. Have you no courage? No spark of will?"

"I daresay your Miss Valverde has sufficient for us both," she replied coolly.

He arched an eyebrow and smiled. "Indeed she has. I appreciate spirit in animals and women."

"Why, because it amuses you to break them?"

He was very still. "You think of all men as brutes, is that it?"

"Some men are," she said huskily.

"Some women invite it," he returned.

She tried to pull away from him, but he refused to let go of her shoulders.

"Stand still," he said quietly.

She desisted, fatigued and depressed as she considered that her father would soon return.

"Is there no inclination in you to fight?" he asked. "Suppose I had in mind dragging you into the bushes with lewd intent, Miss Howard?"

"I should scream."

"And if I covered your mouth with mine," he whispered, bending, "and prevented it?"

She felt his breath on her lips. She wanted to run. She wanted to stay. She remembered how he looked just awakened, with his hair rumpled and his shirt open. She remembered the touch of his mouth on her wrist and how it had made her feel. All those thoughts paralyzed her in his grasp. When his hard mouth came closer, all she could do was watch its approach without even the appearance of protest.

His lean hands came up to frame her oval face. They were warm against the faint chill of evening, and just slightly callused. His pale eyes met her dark ones, almost with speculation.

"Your mouth has the shape of a Cupid's bow," he said, his deep voice smooth and low in the silence of night. His thumb moved across it in a teasing, exploring caress. "It trembles when I touch it. Is it fear that you feel with me, I wonder, or something more?"

She grasped at sanity. He was going to marry Darcy. Surely, this was only another taunt, another effort to make her vulnerable and then laugh at her weakness.

Her hands grasped his shirt and pushed, but he was immoveable.

"Shhh," he whispered gently. The hands framing her face became caressing. His eyes fell to her soft mouth, and he began to bend toward her. "In the parlor Saturday night," he said roughly, "and in church Sunday, there were fires burning between us. I want to see how deeply they burn, Amelia. I want to take your mouth under my own and taste you like a ripe apple…"

As he spoke, his lips began to fit themselves to hers with what she dimly recognized as expertise. He hesitated when she protested, renewing his efforts very gently when she stopped resisting him. He felt her hands tauten on his shirt and then slowly relax as his lips probed delicately between her own.

"I will not hurt you," he whispered into her mouth.

His hands moved, catching her arms and guiding them gently up, around his neck. They moved again, his lean fingers touching her back, burning through the thin lawn of her dress as they pressed her to him. She could feel the muscles of his broad chest, its warmth and strength as his arms slowly enfolded her.

It was new and frightening to be held so closely and feel so empty, as if life suddenly depended on the mouth slowly invading her own. She felt the hardness of his lips as they began to move insistently, trespassing beyond the tight line to touch the dark inner recess of her mouth.

She stiffened, because this new intimacy was causing sensations that made her knees go weak.

He lifted his dark head and looked at her. He wasn't teasing, or mocking, now. His eyes were half-closed, glittery in the dim light.

"Your mouth has the softness of a flower petal," he whispered. "And you taste of innocence, Amelia. Innocence and virginal terror."

"Please, you must not…" she began breathlessly.

"Why?"

"There is… there is Miss Valverde," she managed huskily.

"One chaste kiss is hardly a proposal of marriage," he murmured. "And it will be chaste, if that makes you less afraid to submit to me. Come here, Amelia."

He kissed her again, but not insistently or boldly. His mouth was tender, coaxing hers to respond. She tensed, but her lips yielded to the slow stroking of his mouth, and with a jerky sigh, she let him have her mouth without restraint.

The submission, unexpectedly sweet, made him reckless. His hand went behind her head and gently cupped it, pulling her mouth upward, even closer, so that the pressure of his kiss increased and grew demanding, ardent. His arms swallowed her up, but so tenderly for all their strength that she forgot her misgivings. Her hands tangled in the thick hair at his nape, savoring the softness and coolness of it under her fingertips.

She felt his hand at her throat then, sliding hungrily up and down it, and he turned her, so that his ardent mouth forced her head back against his broad shoulder, imprisoned. The kiss went on and on, and she felt near to fainting when his hard lips finally lifted.

Her eyes opened, misty and startled. She was still clinging to him, her heart beating madly against his chest.

He looked totally impervious to any emotion. A faint smile touched the mouth that had ravished hers.

"Will you fall if I put you from me?" he asked with quiet amusement.

She couldn't answer him. It had been earthshaking. But to him, it appeared, there was no such uniqueness. He wasn't even breathing hard.

After a minute, she pulled against his hands, and he loosened her at once. While she stood dragging in air, he calmly lit a cigar and stood smoking it, his eyes on the distant horizon.

She was a fool. She wondered why she could never see through his tricks. Perhaps this latest lesson would teach her restraint.

With a heavy sigh, she turned and walked back toward the house without another word. But he fell into step beside her, tall and elegant. Cigar smoke drifted down into her nostrils, harsh after the faint and delicate perfume of the rose.