Schulze, Dallas (3 page)

But at what cost? At the cost of his political career? At the cost
of her own self-respect?

“Lila?” he said again, asking her to confirm or deny. He’d believe
whatever she told him, Lila knew. He’d never question her word.

“It wasn’t rape.” The words were dragged from her in a painful whisper,
but they seemed to echo like thunder in the small room.

“It wasn’t—” Logan stared at her in shocked disbelief. “But you
told me that’s what happened; that that was how you—”

“You assumed it and I let you believe it.” Lila looked at him,
feeling weary all the way to her soul, too weary to feel much pain at admitting
to yet another lie, yet another betrayal. “I was ashamed to tell you the
truth.”

“You didn’t have to lie to me.” Logan’s eyes darkened with anger.
“I’d still have married you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing the words were hopelessly
inadequate.

Logan clearly thought so too. “Dammit, Lila, you—”

“Leave her alone.” Oddly, it was Bishop who gave the order. “And
watch your language in front of the ladies.”

“You’re in a fine position to give lessons on how to treat a
lady,” Logan snapped, turning his anger and frustration on Bishop. “You
apparently didn’t give it much consideration three months ago when you—”

“That’s enough, Logan.” Douglas put his hand on the other man’s
shoulder. The two of them had grown up together, had been friends since
boyhood. “I’m the one with the right to demand explanations.”

“There’s no point in explanations,” Bishop said impatiently.

“I think I’m owed a few,” Douglas snapped. “More than a few. When
I invited you into my home, I didn’t think it would be necessary to lock my
sister away to keep her safe from you.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Lila said. She could hardly believe that
she was defending Bishop. But it seemed he was unwilling to defend himself. He
just stood there, listening to Douglas’s harsh condemnation, saying not a word,
and she suddenly found that she couldn’t let her brother’s accusations go
unanswered.

“This was my fault,” Douglas said, his eyes anguished as he looked
at her.

“No, it isn’t.”

"
I
brought him here. I allowed this to happen to you.
You’re young and innocent and he seduced you—”

Lila felt something snap inside her. She’d been living a lie for
weeks, pretending that everything was going to be all right; that she could
somehow patch the pieces of her life back together in some recognizable form.
But that wasn’t going to happen. There was no going back. She could only go
forward, and she was suddenly, fiercely, determined that there were going to be
no more lies.

“Stop it!” She stood abruptly, her heavy silk skirts rustling
around her. “That’s not the way it was at all.” “Lila.” Susan had remained
silent throughout the discussion, but she rose also and put her hand on her
sister-in-law’s arm. Her china-blue eyes were soft with concern. “You’re upset.
Don’t say something you’re going to regret.”

Regret?
Lila had to catch back a hysterical laugh. She had so much to
regret. What was one more thing? Stepping away from Susan’s touch, she faced
her brother, her face porcelain pale, her eyes blazing green and filled with an
angry pain.

“He didn’t seduce me, Douglas. In fact, it was the other way
around. I seduced him.”

“That’s enough,” Bishop said sharply.

“Trying to protect my reputation?” Lila asked, shooting him a
mocking look. “I think it’s too late for that, don’t you? I might as well tell
the truth, if I can remember how. Why shouldn’t Douglas know what happened that
night?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Bishop told her. “It’s over and
done.”

“Of course it matters. That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? Because
of what happened that night? Don’t you think Douglas has a right to know why
he’s in the midst of a scandal? Don’t you think he should know what kind of
woman his sister is? That I’m nothing but
a—”

Bishop moved with shocking speed for a man his size. One moment he
was across the room, the next he was looming over her, his fingers wrapped
around her arm in a grasp that stopped just short of being painful.

“Not another word.” His voice was low and hard.

Lila stared up at him, reading the warning in his expression.
Green eyes clashed with blue. Hers were the first to drop. She focused her gaze
on the hard thrust of his chin, and it occurred to her that here was another
example of how much she’d changed. The girl she’d been three months ago would
have met the challenge in his eyes with one of her own. The woman she was now
recognized a battle she’d surely lose.

“What happened is no one’s business but our own,” Bishop said in
that same quiet tone. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Lila nodded slowly. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered.

He smelled of dust and leather and horse, a distinctly masculine
amalgam of scents. He was solidly muscled, overwhelmingly male, the reason her
life was destroyed, and Lila wanted nothing more than to be able to lay her
head against his shoulder and let him deal with everything and everyone.

The thought was so shocking that she stiffened and pulled away
from him. He let her go and turned to look at Douglas.

“Lila and I need to talk.”

“The way you ‘talked’ three months ago?” Logan asked, his mouth
curling in a sneer.

“Logan!” Susan’s shocked protest made him flush. Bishop stiffened
but Douglas spoke first.

“That was uncalled for.”

“You’re right. I apologize.” Logan spoke to a point somewhere
between Lila and Bishop, his tone flatly polite, his expression rigid and as
empty as his apology. “I don’t really think I’m needed here. If you’ll excuse
me.” He executed a stiff little bow before turning on his heel and walking out.

The door closed behind him and Lila felt her heart crack just a little
more than it already had. She’d known Logan all her life, had counted him as a
friend, almost as a second brother. Now he was gone, and she had the terrible
feeling that she might never see him again. The repercussions of that one night
seemed never ending.

“You’ll marry her as soon as I can make the arrangements,” Douglas
said, breaking the taut silence left in the wake of Logan’s exit.

“No!” Lila’s gasp of protest was swallowed up in Bishop’s
response.

“Why do you think I came back?” he asked, sounding tired and
angry.

“I don’t know.” The look Douglas gave him was sharp with dislike.
“Apparently, I don’t know you at all.”

Bishop’s jaw tightened but all he said was “Make the
arrangements.”

“Don’t I have anything to say about this?” Lila demanded, feeling
as if the jaws of a trap were closing around her.

“What is there to say?” Douglas asked. He jerked his head toward
the door and the church that lay beyond. “Setting aside everything else, after
the scene out there, I don’t think you have much choice.”

He was right. She knew he was right. Even if Reverend Carpenter
didn’t spread the news of her condition, Bishop’s dramatic appearance would set
the gossip mill in motion. It wouldn’t take long for some clever soul to put
the pieces of the puzzle together in more or less the correct order. She
wouldn’t be able to show her face in public without the whispers following her.
And, even if no one guessed the truth, in a few weeks there would be no hiding
it anyway.

“Besides, aren’t you forgetting something?” Douglas glanced at her
still-flat stomach, reminding her of the child she was carrying. As if she
needed a reminder, Lila thought, swallowing against a wave of panic.

“Make the arrangements,” Bishop said again when Lila didn’t answer
her brother. “Now I’d like to speak to Lila alone.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Susan said, rising from the sofa and
shaking out the skirts of her pale-blue dress.

“Well, I don’t.” Douglas shot Bishop a look of acute dislike. “I’m
not going to leave her alone with him.”

“I’m not going to ravish her in a church,” Bishop snapped
impatiently.

“They need to talk,” Susan put her hand on Douglas’s arm. “We’ll
wait right outside.”

Though he clearly wasn’t happy about the idea, Douglas allowed
himself to be shepherded from the room.

Their departure left behind a thick silence. For the first time
since that night three months before, Lila and Bishop were alone.

“It’s true then,” he said. “You’re pregnant.”

Lila flushed. In polite society, no one used such blunt terms. If
they referred to it at all, they might mention that she was in an interesting
condition or in a family way. But considering the situation, it was probably a
bit late to be worrying about polite conventions.

“I am with child,” she said stiffly.

“Why didn’t you write me?”

“How would I have addressed the letter? Mr. Bishop McKenzie, west
of Pennsylvania?”

“Douglas knew where I was.”

“Of course!” Lila widened her eyes in mock amazement. “Now, why
didn’t I think of that? All I had to do was ask Douglas for your address. And
if he happened to ask me why I wished to contact you, I could have told him
that I was sending you a receipt for strawberry jelly that you’d requested.”

She was perversely pleased to see Bishop’s jaw tighten at her
tone. When he spoke, it was in the tone of a man nearing the end of his
patience, and that pleased her too.

“Look, I’ve done a lot of traveling the last few days. There was a
bridge down about twenty miles back and I had to buy a horse and then nearly
rode it to death to get here. I’m not really in the mood to stand here
listening to you sharpen your tongue on my hide.”

“I didn’t ask you to come here. Why
did
you come?” she
asked, her eyes narrowing. When he’d first appeared, she’d been too stunned to
question his presence. It had seemed as if the divine hand of justice had
descended to punish her for her sins. But now that the shock was starting to
wear off, it occurred to her that there was probably a more earthbound
explanation. “How did you find out...” She let the question trail off, unable
to say the words.

“That you were going to pass my child off as another man’s?”
Bishop asked, his voice sharp enough to make her wince. “Susan wrote me.”

“Susan!” Lila stared at him in shocked disbelief. “I didn’t tell
her about—I didn’t tell her anything. How did she know? And how did she know to
contact you?”

“I don’t know. But she did.”

“She had no right! It was none of her concern.” Her
sister-in-law’s interference felt like a betrayal.

“Maybe she thought it was
my
concern,” Bishop said sharply.

“Why would Susan assume that you ... That you and I... that we—”
She flushed and looked away from him, her voice trailing off. “I didn’t tell
her. I didn’t tell anybody.”

“Well, don’t look at me.” Bishop ran his fingers through his hair,
feeling weariness settle over him like a heavy cloak. “It’s not something I
discussed with anyone. Maybe she saw you sneaking out of my room.”

“I didn’t sneak!” Lila flared. “I just... left.”

“Well, you must have done your leaving very quietly to avoid
waking me.”

“Considering how much you’d had to drink, I doubt anything less
than a cannon blast would have roused you.”

“I could say the same about you. As I recall, the champagne was
flowing pretty freely that night.”

“The last thing I want to do is recall anything about that night,”
she said tightly. “If I could, I’d forget it ever happened.”

“I tried to see you the next morning. Your maid said you weren’t
seeing anyone. I would have thought you’d make an exception for me.”

Bishop had awakened the morning after Douglas’s wedding with a
mouth full of cotton, a pounding headache, and a sick feeling in his gut that
had less to do with the amount he’d had to drink than it did with the vicious
bite of his conscience. There had been no merciful period of forgetfulness, no
whiskey-granted amnesia. His memories of the night before had been painfully
clear. The feel of a woman in his arms, the uncertain eagerness of her
response, the soft warmth of her body against him, beneath him.

“You were the last person I wanted to see,” Lila said, pulling him
away from the memories. “What was there to say? Unless you were going to offer
to marry me?” When he said nothing, her mouth twisted in a mocking smile. “I
didn’t think so.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to spend the rest of your life paying
for one mistake,” he said. That was the conclusion he’d reached after a
considerable amount of painful thought.

“How kind of you to think of me,” she said with exaggerated
gratitude. “But your efforts were in vain because here we are. It looks like
we’re both going to paying for that particular mistake for a long time to come.
You should have stayed where you were. No sense in two people suffering where
one would do.”