Blue Moon (18 page)

Slowly, he lowered her to the ground until she was standing. Her dress fell down around her ankles. Before he could move, she bent down, drew his pants up for him and then turned and walked a few feet away while he tied them up.

Noah hurried. Even in the gloaming he could see that she had turned inward, wrapped her arms around her midriff as if she ached inside.

How long would it take, he wondered, until she no longer felt shame or blamed herself for something so right, so natural between them. Would a preacher’s words and a wedding ceremony be enough to release her of her guilt?

By the time he walked the half-dozen steps to where she stood, she had dropped her arms to her sides and turned to face him again. Her head was high, proud. For that he was grateful—until she said with cold finality, “Thank you very much, Noah. I got what I wanted.”

A cold sense of dread, cold as winter waters, eddied about him. “What are you saying, Olivia?”

“Seeing Darcy again brought back everything he and I shared. But the only other man I’ve ever known is you, so I … I had to find out which of you I prefer. I can’t marry you, Noah. Now or ever.” Her voice sounded strained, not like her at all. The words pounded into his heart. “Darcy is a far more experienced lover. Besides, he can give me everything—clothes, jewels, horses.” She reached up, grabbed a handful of her wild mane, and pushed it back off her face.

Things that she and Darcy shared?

“Olivia, you ran from him. What did he give you before? Fear? Terror? Imprisonment? I don’t believe you.” Shock rocked him.

Noah grabbed her wrist and pulled her up against him, expecting her at least to fight, to try to pull away, but there was no reaction from her whatsoever. Whatever passion had been there before they had made love was gone. He could feel her warmth, but nothing deep or lasting communicated itself to him. He might as well have been holding a doll.

She stared him in the face, held herself rigid. “Listen to me and listen well. There is nothing to understand. I am saying that your safe little world isn’t for me, Noah. Go back to your treehouse and your swamp and forget about me. Tomorrow I’m going to New Orleans with Darcy.”

Olivia started back across the field alone, dazed by her pain, drawn by the light in the cabin windows, willing herself not to look back at the man who would own her heart forever and never even know it. With a throat so full of unshed tears she was choking on them, she stumbled, barely saving herself from falling to her knees, from the humiliation of having Noah see her go down.

If she fell, could she get up? Or would she lie there in her father’s field amid the rows of corn, in the dirt where she belonged?

Halfway home, she saw the slight figure of a woman run out of the front door. Molly was headed across the field toward her, carefully picking her way over the ruts and rows, through the knee-high corn.

“Molly, over here.” So as not to frighten the girl out of her wits, Olivia called out softly. Her voice was that of another woman, certainly not her own, for she had just given up the final essence of herself, whatever remnant or grain of goodness, whatever speck had once been good and true in her—she had given it to Noah and left it with the lie she told him to save him, to save them all.

When Molly reached her side, the young Scots girl’s burr was thick as porridge, a sure sign she was upset.

“Oh, Miss Livvie,” she stopped to catch her breath. “There was a handsome man came to the door, sayin’ terrible things to yer father. He wanted to buy ye, but yer father would have none of it and tried to throw the man out. I had to get the rifle and threaten him myself before he’d leave.”

Olivia grabbed Molly’s hand and held tight, but dared not speak, fearing that she would betray herself. She thanked God for the cover of night.

“Your father was so upset he actually broke down and cried. I wanted to run and get ye right away, but he ’ad me wait until he was sartin the man was gone and ye and Noah were safe. Now yer father wants ye home, Miss Livvie.”

So, he had come already. Found the farm, found her family. Darcy was more desperate than she thought. He had actually seen her father, offered him money. For her. Her humiliation was complete, but with it her resolve hardened. Obviously Darcy would stop at nothing. He would kill Noah, and her father. Perhaps even Susanna and the boys’ lives were in jeopardy.

Before she took another step, she braced herself for what she had to say and do, and most of all for how her father might react. Then she let go of Molly’s hand. She shook out her hair. The smell and taste of Noah was on her. His seed filled her womb. Would the others know what happened between them? She did not know or care, so long as it would not give her pretense away.

“Let’s go, Molly.”

She struck out again, across the field, toward the light. Outside the cabin door she pulled herself together, pasted a smile on her face and stepped inside. When Olivia walked through the door, they all looked at her, but said nothing. Most unlike themselves, the boys were sitting wide-eyed and silent, staring at their father, who looked as if he had just walked through the jaws of hell.

Susanna was beside Payson, her arm around his shoulder. She brushed his hair back off his forehead.

“Molly tells me Darcy Lankanal was here.” Olivia fought to appear calm, as if she had been expecting the visit. Then she pretended to notice her father’s distress for the first time.

“Daddy,” she went to him, sat beside him on the bench. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes were red-rimmed, a bright, watery blue that stood out in stark relief in his ashen face. “Oh, Livvie.” His unshed tears actually stung her to her soul. “Livvie, he said horrible things, spoke of what you had to endure in New Orleans.”

“Oh, Daddy.” Feeling shallow and conniving, she actually found the will to smile as she reached over and hugged him quickly. She sat back, kept up the charade. “Darcy would say anything to get me to go back with him.”

Payson whispered, “Don’t try to make light of it to spare me.”

Olivia glanced at Susanna. Her stepmother had not left Payson’s side. She was watching Olivia very closely. If anyone could discern her lie, it was Susanna.

“What’s a whore, Livvie?” Little Pay was as sober as she had ever seen him as he leaned his crossed arms on the tabletop, expecting an answer.

Olivia blanched, then quickly recovered. “Why don’t you boys go on up to bed and I’ll be there shortly?”

“But … we just got back down.”

“Go on.” She gave him her sternest look. He sighed and nudged Freddie, who was almost asleep anyway, and the two of them trudged back up the ladder.

When they disappeared over the edge of the loft, Olivia slid onto the bench beside Payson. She took his hand and traced the blue veins that stood out against his worn, sunburned skin.

“Did he tell the truth, Livvie? Did Lankanal buy you from those men?”

Unable to meet his eyes, she kept tracing her finger over the back of his hand and nodded, her mind racing ahead to put together a story, something, anything that would convince him that things were definitely not the way Darcy had said.

“He did, but he saved my life by doing so. Who knows what Colonel Sullivan and his men would have done to me if
they
had kept me? Darcy is very rich, Daddy. He kept me like a queen. I had everything I wanted.”

“Why did you run away?”

“Because … I wanted to see all of you, but Darcy, well, he can be very possessive. One day we argued about me coming home for a visit and I was so mad that I … I ran. It was a childish thing to do, I know, but I wanted to see all of you and let you know I was all right. I … found a couple to travel with, but we became separated not far from here. Noah … found me and was kind enough to bring me home, as you know.”

She felt Susanna’s gaze on her, but could not meet her eyes. Instead, she forced herself to look at her father. He had such a hopeful, yearning expression on his face. He wanted so desperately to believe her that she could hardly bear to continue the lie.

Trying to give the story credibility, she added, “Did he offer you money for me?” She tried to laugh when Payson nodded, but a strangled, odd sound came out instead. “He told me he was going to do that when I saw him in town today, but I didn’t think he would dare.”

“You saw him today?” Payson looked down at their joined hands.

She nodded. “Yes. He came to Shawneetown to get me. I told him I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted to go back with him and asked him to give me until tomorrow to decide. I wanted to be able to break the news to all of you first. I see he could not wait for me to tell you on my own—”

“Tell us
what
, Livvie?” Susanna spoke for the first time.

Olivia felt Molly move up closer to the table from where she had been standing in the shadow of the open door, listening.

“I’ve made up my mind,” she said with bold finality and false bravado. “I’m going back to New Orleans with Darcy. Susanna is back on her feet and Molly is here to help you. Noah has gone back to Heron Pond. You’ll all be fine.”

Her father was staring at her as if she had grown another head.

“Are you doing this to punish me, Livvie? Are you doing this because I was too weak to save you before? Are you trying to pay me back by going off with Lankanal? By living with a gambler, a whoremonger?”

Up in the loft, Freddie’s not-so-soft whisper echoed against the ceiling. “What’th a whore, Little Pay?”

Sick to her stomach at what she had brought into their home, Olivia let go of her father’s hand. She stood and drew herself up with all the dignity she could muster.

“I have never whored for Darcy, Daddy. Whatever I did, I did willingly.” She thought of the days and nights she had spent with Lankanal, never willing, never wanting to give in, holding back as long as she could, fighting her release until she could fight no more. Each time, although her heart never did, her body would betray her and Darcy would win another victory in their sensual battle of wills.

Susanna finally stirred. With a wistful stare, she watched Olivia for a moment, then turned away, walked to the fireplace and stared down into the fire with her back to them.

“What about Noah?” Susanna asked without turning.

Olivia started, then looked at her stepmother’s back, at the soft fall of her blond hair against the once-becoming day dress that was far too fine for a farmer’s wife to own. Her shoulders were set in a stubborn line. If Susanna suspected her of lying, why didn’t she challenge her? Olivia’s heart skipped a beat. She shrugged and feigned nonchalance for her father’s benefit.

“Noah is nice enough, but Darcy can give me everything I’ve ever wanted. I didn’t realize how much I missed him until I saw him today in town.”

“Where
is
Noah?” Payson glanced around the room as if he expected Noah to appear.

“Gone.” Olivia willed her voice not to break. “Gone home. When I told him that I chose Darcy over him, he didn’t take it very well.”

“If you have intentionally set out to hurt me deeply, Livvie, you have succeeded.” Payson spoke so softly that she barely heard.

“Of course I didn’t, Daddy.”

“Yet you’ll give yourself to this man again, for things he can
buy
you? He bought
you
and yet you want to go back to him. Why? Just tell me why.”

She looked down at her hands. “For love.”

The words were like poison in her mouth, a poison she would willingly swallow to save all of them.

“Don’t do it, Livvie.” Payson was begging her now. “Don’t go with him.”

She was so afraid she was about to cry that she abruptly stood up and paced over to the window, past the open door, then back to the window. The floor was hard-packed dirt but uneven, with well-worn, gentle dips and rises. She stopped and stared out into the deepening night.

It was warm June weather, but she felt a need to rub her arms and fight back a shiver. When she had collected herself, she faced her father again. He was still seated at the table, as if he had lost the will to stand. His thinning hair and the lines etched around his eyes reminded her that he was no longer a young man.

“Please don’t argue with me, Daddy. It won’t do any good. I have to go.”

“Tell me why, for God’s sake.
Why
, Livvie?”

“I told you. For love.”

Chapter 16

Shawneetown

Not only did the entire lower floor of the hotel smell like pork and cabbage, but plaster hung off the walls, the finish was cheap, the floors bare. Darcy thought the place a disgrace, but there was no other choice of lodging in Shawneetown.

Knowing he probably wouldn’t get an hour’s sleep in a sty like this one, he hurried across the lower floor to the stairs, went straight to Betts’s room and knocked on the door. He hoped for Telford’s sake the man was there. He had told the land agent to wait for him until he returned from the Bonds’ place and wasn’t in the mood to go searching for him.

Holding a fried chicken leg in one hand, a napkin tied around his neck, Betts opened the door a crack and stared out at Darcy.

“Open the door, you idiot, it’s me.” Darcy shouldered his way through, gave the man a disgusted glare, and then sat in the only chair in the room. Betts closed the door behind him, yanked the napkin off his neck and set the chicken leg back on a plate with a wistful sigh.

“Did you get her?” After wiping his greasy mouth on the napkin, Betts wadded the linen up and tossed it aside.

“Not yet. I have a job for you, Betts.”

“When do I get my money?”

Darcy slipped two fingers into a slim pocket in his vest, snagged a gold piece and tossed it across the room with a flick of his wrist. “Here’s a little advance. Now stop harping.”

As Betts caught the coin and pocketed it, Darcy studied himself in an oval mirror above a small side table, smoothing his hand over his already neatly combed hair.

“What do you want me to do?” Betts slowly walked over to the bed and sat down. The bed ropes groaned and the husk-filled mattress crackled and sagged beneath his weight.

“I want you to hang out in the local establishments, keep an eye out for the half-breed. Keep him busy when he shows up looking for me.”

“How do you know he’ll come?”

Darcy smiled, thinking of the things he’d told Payson Bond, remembering the respect he’d heard in Bond’s voice when he spoke of the stinking half-breed.

“Oh, he’ll come all right. He’ll only be too happy to try to make me pay for what I told that hayseed farmer.” The man was obviously Olivia’s self-appointed watchdog. Involuntarily, Darcy frowned, still haunted by the look that had passed between Olivia and LeCroix earlier. The way she had stepped close to the man for protection rankled him. Had LeCroix sampled her yet? Had he been between her soft, pale thighs?

Wondering brought Darcy to his feet. He began to pace the room. Olivia had wild blood and, whether she wanted to admit it or not, she liked what a man could do to her. Her needs were as strong as any man’s. Darcy paused beside a glass tumbler on the table. He picked it up, felt the weight of it in his hands, stared into the emptiness of it.

Any man would gladly take what the hot-blooded little minx offered. Surely the half-breed had. Darcy looked over at the mirror again and then heaved the tumbler at his image. The mirror and the glass exploded, raining sparkling shards of silver over the table beneath it.

Betts jumped to his feet. “What’d you do that for?”

Darcy turned on him. The man’s face was florid; his heavy lower lip quivered.

“I felt like it. I always do what I feel like doing, Betts. Don’t forget that. Now, why don’t you go on downstairs and peruse the town for LeCroix. If anyone asks, say that you haven’t seen me all day and you have no idea where I am or when I’ll be back. I’ll stay right here so that if he goes looking in my room, he won’t find me.”

“But—”

“You’ll get your money tomorrow, Betts. All of it and a bonus for keeping LeCroix away from me. I’m going back for Olivia tomorrow at first light and we’ll all leave for New Orleans.”

“If you’re lying, Lankanal—” Betts’s threat went unfinished. Both men knew he would do nothing to back it up.

With nothing left to lose, Noah slipped up the back stairs of the hotel with his pack on his back and his rifle in his hands and walked up to room number four, the one the owner told him was registered to Darcy Lankanal. With no idea of what he was going to do, he stood there staring at the number, his hand clenched around the stock of his rifle.

If Olivia wanted Lankanal, she would have him—but only after he was finished with him. Noah started to knock, then thought better of giving his rival fair warning. His hand closed over the knob and he tried it, slowly twisting the brass beneath his palm.

“Here, what are you doing?” The whiskey-soaked proprietor had followed him, fumbling up the stairs, weaving on his feet. “Did you knock? Maybe Mr. Lankanal doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

Noah turned on the man with a red wash of rage surging through him. He tried to focus on the heavy, drunken man. Somewhere in the back of his mind, years of honor and reason whispered to him, held his temper in check, kept him from lashing out.

“He told me to meet him here. Maybe you better open the door, see if he’s all right.” Noah held his breath, waited as the man slowly measured him with rheumy eyes, judged the worth of his words. A touch of fear and doubt warred with the awe in the man’s eyes. He knew who Noah was, had called him by name downstairs.

Finally the slovenly man slowly nodded and took a ring of keys out of his pocket. He knocked and called out Lankanal’s name twice before he fitted one into the lock.

Noah stood ready, damning Darcy Lankanal, itching to feel the man’s neck between his hands.

The door swung inward. The room was dark, but the glow from a lamp in the hallway illuminated the bed with a ring of pale light. The room was empty.

“Sorry, Mr. LeCroix. He ain’t here. Like I said, I ain’t seen him since around midday. You might find the man he come in with, a Mr. Betts, and ask him where Mr. Lankanal is. I saw Betts leave a few minutes ago.”

Doubting the man would even remember he had been here on the morrow, Noah turned on his heel and walked out. Determined to find Lankanal before his rage cooled, he hurried along the hall, took the narrow stairs two at a time and hit the street.

The taverns were crowded. Settlers, pilgrims, hunters, saline miners, one or two other half-breeds, and a handful of women of questionable backgrounds stood cheek to jowl in the first such establishment Noah entered. He hated being cooped up with so many people in one room, hated the stares that focused on him and held as he walked through the door. When he walked over to the bar and turned his back on the room, conversation started up again.

He ordered a whiskey, tossed it back, and put a coin down on the bar. The barkeep was short. The bar came almost to his chest. Loath to move on, the man kept wiping a rag in a circle in front of Noah.

“You seen a man named Betts in here? Gent from New Orleans? Or a gambler name of Lankanal?” Noah asked him.

Thrilled to be able to help the Prince of the Ohio, the barkeep nodded toward the back wall. “Lankanal hasn’t been in all day, but that’s Betts, back there in the corner eating steak and potatoes.”

Noah nodded his thanks and began to thread his way through the crowd toward Betts. By the time he reached the table, Betts sensed all eyes turned in his direction. He swallowed his last bite of steak, wiped his mouth on a napkin, and was on his feet by the time Noah reached his table.

“Where is he?” Noah demanded when he reached Betts’s side. Overweight, sweat-drenched, and flushed, the man posed no threat to him, and yet Noah did not relax his stance. He could feel anger rolling off him in wave after wave.

Betts swallowed hard. “Who?”

“You know who,” Noah said softly, his voice devoid of emotion. “Lankanal.”

“I haven’t seen him all day. He went out looking for some little whore.”

Noah’s rifle clattered to the floor. The crowed parted around them as he lunged for Betts’s throat. He grabbed the man by his shirtfront. Despite the fact that Betts outweighed him by a good fifty pounds, Noah was taller and stronger. He hefted him up and shook him hard. The man struggled and grabbed Noah’s wrists but couldn’t break the hold.

“Where is he?”

“I told you. He’s not here. He said we were leaving at dawn. I don’t expect him back until then.”

Nothing was making sense to Noah anymore, not Olivia or the words coming out of the fat man’s mouth. Was Lank-anal at the Bond homestead then? Had he been there all the time, waiting for Olivia while she was making love to him in the woods? While she had been riding him, testing him? Comparing him to the handsome, golden-haired gambler?

Had the two of them planned to meet each other at the homestead when they spoke earlier in town?

What in the hell was going on
?

The red haze of anger deepened with his confusion. Noah’s hands tightened on the man’s shirt. Betts’ skin oozed over the top of the collar. Spittle was flying out of the land agent’s mouth as he tried to form words of protest and squealed for help like a stuck pig. His legs pumped and his knees hit Noah in the thighs. Betts’s hand came up, pulling off Noah’s makeshift eye patch. A collective gasp was followed by hushed silence and suddenly Ern Matheson was there, his hand on Noah’s arm, his voice ringing in Noah’s ear.

“Put him down, LeCroix, before you kill him. Let him go, you hear me, boy? If you push this any further, I’ll have to take you into custody and I got no place to lock you up.”

Noah heard the constable’s voice through his anger and fought his way back to the edge of reason, trying to surface. Finally, he managed to loosen his hold on Betts. The man dropped to his feet with a heavy thud and grabbed at his collar. His lips had gone almost blue.

Shaking his head as if he had just broken the surface of deep water, Noah stared at Betts, then at Ern Matheson, trying to remember where he was, what he was doing. Noah stared at Betts, watched the man’s bug eyes staring back at him, saw his fear, felt himself ease off. He had no argument with this man, no clear idea why he had overreacted. His mind was befuddled. He felt as if it were filled with dense fog, the kind that hovered in the low-lying grasses and reeds in the dips and hollows along the riverbank.

“Mind telling me what’s going on here?” Ern gestured to the crowd to get back to whatever it was they were doing before the altercation.

“He was asking me about Darcy Lankanal, the gambler I came up here with on business. I told him I didn’t know where Darcy was and he went crazy.” Telford Betts’s voice sounded gravelly, ill used.

Noah watched the sweat trickle down the man’s temple. Betts was shaking, gasping for breath like a dying fish pulled from the river. Betts’s earlier words came back to him in a rush.

“
He went out looking for a little whore
.”

Lankanal and Olivia. They were together. Somewhere.

“LeCroix?” Ern Matheson’s hand was still on his shoulder. He gave Noah a shake. “LeCroix?”

Someone handed Noah his rifle. Betts was looking at the floor between them. Noah turned to Ern, trying to put the words together, but everything was a jumble now. He had to get out of the tavern, out into the street where the air was not heavy with the scent of too many bodies in a room, where it was free of tobacco smoke and the odors of stale food and whiskey.

“I’m sorry.” Noah shook his head. He didn’t mean the words—they were hollow and empty as his soul—but they seemed to be expected of him and so he said them.

“Why don’t you take yourself out of here and lay off the whiskey. You know you people can’t handle it.”

Without trying to discern what Ern meant, Noah looked at Telford Betts. The man had gone down on one knee and was bent over, fumbling, one hand on the floor. Noah dismissed him and turned to go. The crowd parted like the Red Sea as the Prince of the Ohio walked away.

Noah went straight to the river, his feet and his heart taking over now that his brain had ceased to function. It wasn’t until he stood on the edge of the Ohio, was back in his element again, that some of what had happened to him that evening began to come back in a rush of sensation and a blur of pain.

Olivia in the woods, desperate to touch him. He had taken her standing up; she had not fought him. She had even made him believe she had enjoyed it until—

“
Thank you very much, Noah. I got what I wanted
.”

He had told her he loved her.

He had proposed marriage.

“
Darcy is a far more experienced lover. He can give me everything
.”

Noah put his hand to his scarred temple. His head was throbbing. He longed for the sounds of the river to soothe him, the whispering voices to calm him, but the water was silent. She had run from Lankanal, had escaped him in New Orleans. She had feared the man. Her year with him had given her nightmares that had never ended. Yet now, after seeing him in town, she had chosen to go back to New Orleans with him again.

Had she been lying to him about her relationship with Lankanal all along?

“
There’s nothing to understand. Your safe little world isn’t for me, Noah
.”

She was leaving Illinois with Darcy Lankanal in the morning. It was over. All of it.

Heat lightning cracked in the distance. There was a ring around the moon, a sure sign of rain. The air was thick with humidity. Noah started to walk along the muddy riverbank. His mocassin slipped in the ooze. He sat down hard beside the water, laid his rifle down beside him and shrugged off the pack. The water was deep and dark, rushing headlong toward its confluence with the Mississippi and on to New Orleans.

He should have listened to his gut and never left the swamp. Never come out among people again. Instead, he had fallen in love and played the hero for Olivia, brought her back, listened to the words of praise and songs about his skill on the water. He had fallen for the glamour of being a legend on the river.

It made the humiliation all that much greater, knowing it was all a lie. He was no hero, not to Olivia, not to anyone. He was a fool who heard voices in his head, a half-breed with a scar over half his face, that was all. A man who could not even pleasure a woman well enough to keep her.

He hadn’t felt this low since the day Hunter had pulled him out of the river and he had realized he had lost his eye. He had wanted to die that day, to give up on life and living.