Maverick Heart (24 page)

“It’s the fever,” Miles said. “Keep talking to him, Freddy. Perhaps your voice will soothe him.”

Freddy edged onto the bed and took one of Rand’s hands in both of her own. “I’m here, Rand. We’re both safe. The bear ran away. The shots scared him away. Don’t you remember?”

“Freddy,” he moaned.

“I’m safe, Rand. I’m alive.”

Freddy turned beseeching eyes first to Verity and then to Miles. “He’s still crying.”

“Keep talking,” Miles ordered. “Just keep talking.” He had taken Freddy’s job sponging off Rand’s shoulders and chest. Rand’s hallucinations meant the fever was worse. Miles’s heart jumped to his throat and hammered there.

Don’t die
, he pleaded.
I want to get to know you. I want a chance to be your father
.

Freddy bent close to Rand’s ear to speak in whispers that couldn’t be heard by Miles and Verity. “It’s been quite an adventure, hasn’t it, Rand? Who would ever have thought we would be captured by Indians? Or chased by a bear? My friends won’t believe me when I tell them everything that’s happened. Neither will my parents.

“They must be terribly worried about me, Rand. I’m going to have to write them soon and tell them I’m well. They’ll be surprised that we’re not married.
I’ve been thinking about what you said, Rand. Not that I think anyone in England would ever hear the story of what happened to us, but … I have … feelings for you I don’t quite understand …”

She talked to him for hours, while his parents kept applying the cooling water to his skin. At last he seemed more quiet. She kept murmuring to him, begging him to open his eyes, to please wake up.

Freddy gave a small cry of surprise when Rand’s eyes actually opened. She held her breath as they closed, then blinked open again. “Rand?”

He turned his head to look at her. His eyes seemed unfocused at first. “Freddy?” he rasped.

She jumped to her feet, startled by the sound of his voice. “Lady Talbot! Mr. Broderick! Rand’s awake. He knows me!”

Rand looked around him, obviously confused and disoriented. “Where am I?” He tried weakly, futilely, to rearrange the sheet to cover himself better. “Get out!” he said to Freddy. “Mother, get her out!”

“But, Rand—” Freddy protested.

Verity put an arm around Freddy’s shoulders and began ushering her from the room. “I think we should leave Rand alone for a little while.”

“But, Rand—” Freddy cried beseechingly.

“Get out!” he shouted. It came out as more of a croak.

Freddy hadn’t shed a tear through all that had
happened, but a sob, part relief, part confusion, part fatigue, broke free.

“Go ahead and cry, Freddy,” Verity said as she closed the bedroom door behind them and headed to the closest chairs at the kitchen table. “I feel like having a good cry myself.”

Rand was irritated and irritable. He was still trying to cover his nakedness, but his hands wouldn’t obey his commands. He had woken to find himself lying in bed stark naked in a room populated by his fiancée and his mother and a stranger. When the stranger began to help him with the sheets, he muttered, “I can do it myself.”

“Another day, maybe. Right now you’re weak as a two-day-old kitten. Lie back, and let me do it.”

Rand let his hands collapse at his sides and stared balefully at the man who straightened the sheet to cover him from toes to chest.

“Where am I?” he asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.

“The Muleshoe Ranch.”

His brow furrowed. “My mother’s place.”

“Mine,” Miles said in a soft voice.

The grooves in Rand’s forehead deepened. “Grimes said the Muleshoe already belonged to somebody else. I was sure he had to be wrong.”

“It’s a long story. Are you sure you want to hear it now?”

“I need to know what’s going on,” Rand said.

“The man who sold Chester Talbot this land sold it to me first. Your mother’s title to the Muleshoe was never valid.”

A myriad of chaotic emotions churned through Rand. Distress, disappointment, disgust. He stared at the man across from him, realizing who he must be, knowing the answer to the question he was about to ask, but needing to hear it spoken aloud. “Who are you?”

“Miles Broderick. I’m … an acquaintance of your mother’s.”

“Grimes said you married my mother.” It was an accusation.

“I did.”

“Why?”

After a short hesitation he said, “Because the ranch your mother came here to claim, the Muleshoe, belongs to me. She needed a place to live. I wanted a wife.” He lifted a shoulder in what started as a shrug but ended before it was complete. “So we got married.”

Rand’s lips pressed flat. His expression turned ugly. “In other words, you blackmailed her into marrying you.”

“She could have refused.”

Tension simmered between them.

I know who you are
, Rand thought. But he didn’t say the words. Couldn’t say them. His father—Chester Talbot, he corrected himself—had told him everything on his deathbed.

“You already know you’re not my son,” Chester had rasped past the death rattle in his chest.

“Yes, I know,” Rand had said, his heart in his eyes, a lump in his throat. Chester had told him that much of the truth three years before. He was
there to hear the rest of it. “What is my father’s name, sir?” he had asked.

“Miles Broderick is the blackguard who raped your mother and abandoned her. Miles Broderick, Viscount Linden, is your father.”

Chester had warned him not to confront his mother. “She will lie to you, as she did to me. For your own good, of course. She will not want to take the risk that Broderick may kill you in a duel. He is the villain in all of this. I have always hated him. It will be up to you—if he ever sets foot in London again—to avenge your mother’s honor.”

It had been awful to know who has father was, to realize he came from such bad blood, and to still feel curious about the man. One of the reasons Rand had been so glad to come to Wyoming was because he had learned his father was here, and he had wanted to find him and punish him for all the hurt and harm he had caused.

Miles Broderick had proved himself the villain Talbot had named him. Hadn’t Broderick forced his mother into marriage? Hadn’t he somehow stolen the Muleshoe Ranch, which should have been his mother’s home, away from her? As soon as he was well enough, Rand decided, he would take the steps necessary to carry out the duty laid on him by a dying man.

He would have to avenge his mother’s honor. He would have to kill Miles Broderick.

Another thought rose, one he found both alarming and intriguing.
Does Broderick intend to claim me as his son?
His face set grimly.
Miles
Broderick will rue the day he tries to be my father. I don’t have a father. I am that ugly name I was taunted with as a child, that I fought with my fists to deny. I am the bastard they accused me of being
.

His eyes fell closed, and he sighed in exhaustion. Moments later, he was asleep.

Miles checked to make sure Rand was merely sleeping and that the fever had not returned, but his son was breathing deeply, evenly, and without difficulty. Miles laid his hand on Rand’s forehead. His skin felt normal, cool in comparison to the previous fiery heat during the worst of the fever.

A sick feeling of dread churned Miles’s stomach. He had felt the animosity rolling off his son in waves. It was a fair guess that Randal Talbot hated his guts. What had Chester told him? What had he done to poison his son’s mind against him?

You won’t win, Chester. He’s my son. I’ll find a way to reach him. I’ll find a way to undo the damage you’ve done
.

A swell of aching tenderness rose within him as he gazed at his son. Here was flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. Was it too late to be a part of his son’s life? Would Rand, when he knew the truth about his birth—that his parents had been desperately in love with each other when he was conceived—still feel enmity toward Miles for what had been the tragic folly of a young couple in love? Would Rand understand why Miles had ruined Chester? Would he blame Miles for the theft of his inheritance?

Miles realized he was going to have to make some decisions, and soon, about whether—and what—to tell Rand about himself.

“Is he asleep?”

Miles glanced up and saw Verity in the doorway. “Yes. The fever’s broken.”

“Freddy is settled again. The poor girl was exhausted.” She put her hands to the small of her back and arched in the age-old way a woman does when she has labored long and hard.

“You look exhausted, too.”

Verity sat on the edge of the bed, but Miles couldn’t make himself go to her even though he could see the difficulty she was having. She eased back, trying to keep her knees bent so her burned calves wouldn’t come in contact with anything.

When she cried out with pain, Miles could keep his distance no longer. She wasn’t the only one to blame for the tragedy that had occurred. He had to accept at least some of the responsibility. Now that his initial shock and anger had passed, he realized it was her fear of just such a virulent response from him that had kept her from telling him sooner that Rand was his son—even though she must have known he would figure out the truth the instant he laid eyes on him.

“Sit down, Miles,” she said, patting the bed beside her.

He sat down uncomfortably in the small space.

“Did you talk with Rand?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Rand doesn’t approve of our marriage.”

“That was to be expected,” she said.

He felt an ache in his throat. “He hates me, Verity. Chester must have said something, lied to him about me.”

“I was afraid of that,” she murmured. She put a hand on his arm. “All Rand has to do is spend time with you, and he’ll see what a good man you are, Miles.”

He shook his head. “It can’t be that easy.”

“It can. You’re both a great deal alike,” she said. “Stubborn, headstrong. But fair.”

He took the kiss without asking, needing it, needing hope. She gave him the comfort he sought. Her hand slid into the hair at his nape.

He raised himself enough to look into her eyes and spoke quietly to avoid waking Rand. “Do you remember how it was between us the first time, Verity?” he whispered. “Do you remember the day we made our son?”

How could she ever forget? Verity thought. She stared into his gray eyes, remembering.

It was summertime, and oh, so unbearably hot. Dark, dangerous thunderclouds had threatened. She had slipped away to the pond at the edge of her father’s estate, taken off her shoes and stockings, and stuck her toes into the icy water. Even then, a trickle of perspiration had wiggled its way down her back beneath her sky blue merino gown.

Miles had appeared on horseback looking like a centaur, he was so finely made and so much a part of the animal. He had flashed a confident grin—he
had been so charming in those days—and asked, “May I join you?”

He hadn’t waited for her answer. He had already known what it would be. They were young and foolish and in love.

Verity closed her eyes to force the memories away. “Don’t make me remember, Miles.”

“It was a sweet time, wasn’t it? Sometimes I hardly believe it myself. I was Rand’s age.” He turned his head so he could see his son. “We were such babies. If you had a chance to change the past, would you have denied me, Verity?”

“That isn’t a fair question.”

“I suppose not. But I’m asking it anyway.”

She met his gaze steadily. “No, Miles. I wouldn’t change a thing. I loved you so very much. I’ve never been as happy before or since. I wouldn’t give up that joy.”

“I wish I had known about Rand. I would have done things differently.”

“Would you have come back?”

“It’s easy now to say I would have. But I’m not sure.”

“Why not?”

“You could have fallen in love with Talbot. I wouldn’t have been able to bear seeing that. It was easier not to know. I stayed away, I never asked, so I wouldn’t have to know.”

“Why didn’t you ever marry?”

“I never loved another woman.” He didn’t explain that since she had taken his heart, he’d had nothing left to give another woman. That would
have sounded too self-serving—or too pitifully sad. Unfortunately, it was the truth.

Her lips pressed the pulse beneath his ear. “It was probably better you didn’t return,” she whispered. “I was never very good at resisting temptation.”

“Could I have tempted you?”

“There were nights when the memories of the two of us together haunted me.”

She remembered the cool grass beneath her buttocks. Being naked beneath the brooding sky. She remembered the feel of his silky hair against her throat, and the wetness, the hotness of his mouth on her breasts.

She remembered the sharp pain of losing her virginity, the way Miles’s hard body had filled her, stretched her, thrust within her. She remembered the feel of his sweat-slick shoulders beneath her fingertips, the wet curls at his nape. The musky smell of sex.

And the rain, first in sprinkles, then pelting harder and harder against their naked bodies. Washing away the blood and the guilt and leaving them fresh and clean and new. She even remembered the laughter as they donned their soggy clothing in a redeeming ray of sunlight, kissing and touching each step of the way.

The afternoon of her deflowering remained such a vivid recollection, it might have happened yesterday.

“Yes, Miles,” she whispered, raising herself
enough to touch her lips to his. “You could have tempted me.”

He buried his face in the niche between her neck and shoulder. “We were fools.”

“It’s never foolish to love. Perhaps we were guilty of poor judgment. I don’t know.” She sighed and soothed herself and him by caressing him, running her fingers through his hair and clasping him close. “It would be nice to have a crystal ball, to be able to see into the future. Perhaps if we knew what was coming, life would be too terrifying to live. I’ve learned to face each day, one at a time, and survive it the best way I can.”

“Thank you for my son, Verity.”

She felt her throat clog. “You’re welcome, Miles.”

He raised his head and looked into her eyes. “Where do we go from here?”