Lonesome Bride (34 page)

Yet he did not seem inclined to attempt to sway her opinion. He had accepted her refusal to return with him with the grace and charm with which he did everything. Perhaps he was not the villain she had always thought him to be.

Before she knew it, the afternoon and evening had passed with Hammond entertaining them all. He lost gracefully to Shorty, Buck and Albert at poker, denying vehemently he had thrown the game.

"It must be the distraction of so many lovely ladies,” he had said by way of explanation, earning a blush from Sally and a surprised giggle from Lorna.

Buck even invited Hammond to stay for the night in Jed's old room.

"It would be senseless for you to start back tonight,” Buck interrupted when Hammond began to protest. “You can get a good night's rest and an early start in the morning."

"I guess it's true what they say about western hospitality,” Hammond said. “I thank you, Mr. Peters."

When Caite rose to say goodnight, Hammond rose with her. He clasped her hand, kissing it gallantly. “Thank you for granting me the privilege of spending this last evening in your company, my dear,” he said. “If you cannot be my wife, I shall at least always have the memory of these times."

Blushing, Caite extricated her hand and headed off to bed. Hammond still repulsed her, but she had to admit he did know how to beguile a woman. If Jed had only had a little of Hammond's ease, she thought, then stopped herself. Jed may not be Drake Hammond, but that was what she loved about him.

She woke in the dark, ears straining to hear the noise that had dragged her from slumber. Nothing. The house was quiet with not even the sound of the wind to keep her awake. She must have been dreaming.

Caite settled back against the pillows, her eyes already heavy. She had been dreaming about the baby, she realized as she began to drift back into sleep. In her dream, the infant in her arms was gurgling and kicking its tiny legs. She had felt a rush of love so intense it brought tears to her eyes to think of it.

She closed her eyes, her limbs relaxing against the soft comfort of the bed. In the next moment, she felt the coolness of metal pressed to her throat, and a hand across her mouth. Her eyes flew open wildly, but a weight was holding her down, and she could not move.

"Wake up, sweetheart,” Hammond breathed into her ear. “It's time to go."

She made a strangled sound against his fingers, and he chuckled. “Shh, my lovely. If you should scream, that would wake the rest of the house. We wouldn't want that, would we? Not when I have this knife pressed so close to your pretty white throat."

Caite lay stiff with fear. Hammond had tricked them all! She thought of the baby nestled in her womb and her heart pounded. Please, she prayed
. Don't let him hurt the baby.

"At least your throat is still lovely,” Hammond continued. “Your face, I'm sad to say, has been quite marred by your exposure to the sun. Did you never learn to keep your hat on, Caitleen?"

She could not answer him, of course, but Hammond seemed to need no reply. “No matter. It will heal, I think. Your body is still as luscious as I remember. I shall enjoy using it, even if I must mask your face for a while."

Caite grunted against the hand covering her mouth. Hammond tapped the blade against her throat in reprimand. She immediately went still.

"That's better, my dear. Now I'm going to take my hand away from your mouth, but not my knife. If you so much as breathe too loudly, I'll slit your throat. Understand?"

Caite nodded. Hammond seemed satisfied. He slipped his fingers away from her mouth, only to press his thick lips against hers. Caite gagged at the intrusion of his tongue and tried to squirm away as Hammond used his free hand to squeeze her breast.

"I should've thought rape beneath you, Hammond,” she gasped when he had pulled away.

"Rape?” Hammond laughed. “Oh, my dear Caitleen. I'm not going to rape you."

Surprised, she looked at him. In the dim moonlight, his teeth glinted cruelly when he smiled.

"Oh, no. Once a man and a woman are wed, no matter how much force the husband uses against his wife, the courts will never rule it as rape."

A terrible thought began to form in Caite's mind.

"So, you see my dear—” Hammond grinned, the blade of the knife still chill against her skin. “—I'm not going to rape you at all. I'm just going to kidnap you."

Caite's emerald eyes widened, then narrowed in cold fury. “You'll never get away with this."

Hammond chuckled. Caite noticed he had changed from his fancy white buckskin outfit to a more practical pair of denims and a rough shirt. The plain clothes looked out of place on him.

"Now, my dear, you sound like a penny-dreadful. Of course I shall get away with it."

"I will not come with you."

Again, the low, nasty laugh. “You will if you value your life, and that of your unborn bastard."

Her eyes widened again, this time in shock. How could Hammond have known? Surely no one had told him...

"Don't look so surprised, sweetheart,” Hammond remarked. He grabbed Caite's arm and began to pull her from the bed. To prevent the knife from breaking the tender flesh of her throat, she had to follow. “I know that healthy, pregnant glow when I see it. Lord knows I've had enough wailing “widows” come knocking on my door claiming their condition to be my fault."

He forced Caite upright and pointed her toward the wardrobe. Keeping the knife against her, he let go of her arm and swung the door open wide enough to reach inside. He tugged one of her dresses from the hook and tossed it at her, so she had to catch it or have it hit her in the face.

"Yes, I'm carrying Jed's child,” Caite whispered, aware of the irony in her hushed tones. A single cry would alert the rest of the household, but she was too afraid to scream, lest Hammond's knife make good on his threat. If she had only her welfare to think about, she might have risked it, but the babe inside her womb deserved more caution. “Surely you cannot wish to marry me knowing that, Hammond."

Hammond sneered. “Put the dress on, Caitleen."

She began to do as he ordered, her heart thumping wildly. He had taken the knife away so she could pull the cloth over her head. She could strike him with something, and run out...

"Don't think about screaming or running away, dear one,” Hammond told her. “I've got my blade pointed directly at that swelling belly of yours. One move or peep out of you, and you'll find yourself holding your babe long before you'd planned."

Caite repressed a shudder, her blood turning to ice. Hammond meant what he said. She thought of how charming he had been at supper, and cursed herself for falling prey to his tricks.

"In answer to your question,” Hammond continued calmly, as she buttoned her dress with trembling fingers, “I don't give a pair of prancing ponies about the bastard in your womb. Oh, I shall admit I'm disappointed I won't be the first to plant myself between those luscious thighs, but I'll still find some good use for you. It'll be several months before you start to swell anyway, and by that time, I'm sure I'll have moved to greener pastures."

He smiled at her, his eyes cold. “Besides we may get lucky. The hard riding might be too much for you, then your delicate condition won't be a problem any longer."

Caite's fingers clenched on the fabric of her skirt. His casual cruelty sickened her. “Why marry me at all, Hammond?"

He leaned in close to her, so close she could smell the mint and whiskey on his breath. “Because I took everything else of value Desmond O'Neal had, and you're all that's left. You, and that house. By marrying you, I get both."

"What makes you hate my father so much?” She asked.

Hammond gave her a snide, cold grin. “When I was a younger man, your father promised to hire me in one of his shops. Promised to take me on as a partner. Instead, he ended up losing that shop in a poker game. Ironic, isn't it?"

"That seems hardly enough reason to hate a person,” Caite said.

"Because I didn't get that job, or that partnership, and therefore, the income, I was unable to ask for the hand of the young woman I wanted to wed.” Hammond's eyes went distant for a moment before he locked his glaring gaze on her again. “She married someone else."

"She mustn't have loved you,” was all Caite could think of to say.

It was the wrong thing. Hammond's lips pulled back in a silent growl, and he waved the knife at her again. “Shut up!"

"No one will believe I went with you willingly,” Caite declared, lifting her chin at him. No matter how frightened she might be, she would never let him know it.

"They will when they see the note you've left them, telling them how you changed your mind and eloped with me after all."

Caite shook her head. “I will not write any such thing."

Hammond tutted, pouting at her. “My dear, my dear. Must you be so tiresome? Must I explain the situation to you over and over? I'd given you credit for more intelligence than that."

He punctuated every statement with the tiniest jab of the knife, each one coming closer to some part of her. Her arms, her chest, her belly all cringed away from the point of the blade. Hammond's pouting mouth thinned into a grimace.

"You'll write that note, in your finest hand, or I'll cut you from throat to navel like a pig for slaughter."

"You ... you would never get away,” Caite whispered sickly.

Hammond's grimacing smile grew almost cheery. “That, my dear, is a chance I'm willing to take."

Jed stared up at the stars. Sleep had been impossible with all the thoughts whirling around in his brain. He had given up trying finally, and come out here to lay back in the grass with his hands behind his head. Looking up into the night sky, seeing all those glittering points of light, sure had a funny way of making a fellow realize just how small he was.

And how short life was, too. Too short to waste time being unhappy. Caite makes me happy, Jed thought. Happier than he'd ever been. Heck, even when they were fighting, just the sight of her smile could make his anger roll away like clouds after a storm.

"I love her,” Jed announced to the night, to the scattering of stars. “I love Caitleen O'Neal."

He had loved Patricia, and had not been loved in return. His fear of being hurt again had kept him from telling Caite the truth of his feelings. He had been willing to marry her, but not to trust her.

As Jed looked up into dark-velvet sky, he realized just how puny and silly his fears seemed against the vastness of the heavens. I was a coward, he thought. Afraid to take a chance on the most beautiful and wonderful woman he would ever meet, and all because one woman had not had enough love in her to share any with him.

It was time he stopped thinking so much about one woman who had not loved him, Jed decided, and started concentrating on making things right with the woman who did. Caite did love him. He was certain of that now. He had been blind and stupid to ignore the way her eyes shone when she looked at him, and the way her lips had curved into the smile she reserved solely for him. He had been too afraid to admit he saw those signs, but that would change.

He would go back to Heatherfield tomorrow, with no excuses for doing so, either. He would return to find Caitleen and tell her the truth. He wanted her to be his wife because he loved her.

Caite's hand shook as she dipped the pen into the ink, but she willed it steady. Hammond had already cursed her for ruining the first note with blotches of ink. The side of her neck just under her ear still stung from the prick of his knife.

"Happy handwriting,” he growled. “Pretend you're so in love with me the words fairly write themselves."

Caite took down the words Hammond told her. She had reconsidered, she wrote. Dear Drake had so charmed her, she had seen the folly of her ways and decided to go with him to Lonesome. She had not woken anyone because they were so eager to be off, and she did not wish to disturb anyone's slumber.

As she signed the horrible letter, Hammond planted a kiss on her cheek. It took every ounce of will not to shudder at his touch. Instead, she handed him the note as calmly as she could.

"Wonderful,” Hammond praised, scanning the words. “I especially love the part about how you had only just now realized how charming I was. It's a lovely touch."

Caite said nothing. If the hate in her eyes had been bullets in a gun, Hammond would have been shot right through his forehead. As it was, he merely tutted at her again, clearly enjoying the way he was affecting her.

"Come along, Caitleen,” he told her, forcing her into the kitchen.

Instead of bringing the note as she had hoped, he left it in plain sight upon her desk. Not hidden, which would make the finder of it suspicious, but not where anyone would find it right away. Everyone had been so solicitous of her lately, it was more likely no one would even think to wake her before noon. No one would even know she was gone until then, and by that time, only God and Hammond knew where they would be.

Hammond pressed one finger to his lips to indicate her silence. Caite, mindful of his threats against the child she so loved already, obeyed. The pair exited the house out the back door, Hammond carefully closing it behind them so it would not bang.

There's not even a dog to bark and warn any one of our presence, Caite thought in despair as Hammond pointed her toward the barn. His fine white horse had been bedded down there for the night.

"You certainly know how to repay someone's hospitality,” she ventured meanly, daring to speak louder now they were outside.

"My girl, unless you'd like me to bind that tempting mouth of yours,” Hammond snapped sharply, “only use it when I tell you to."

He shoved her through the barn door so hard she nearly fell. “Come to think of it, Caitleen, it might not be a bad idea to do that after all. I wouldn't want you to risk a yell. We're still so close to the house."

To her humiliation, Hammond pulled a fine silk handkerchief from his pocket and tied around her mouth. Roughly, he knotted the silk behind her head, painfully catching a hank of her hair in the knot. As she winced, he brought his mouth to hers. Caite was all at once thankful for the cloth covering her lips, although she still felt the wet imprint of Hammond's tongue as he slid it over the silk.