The Enchanted Land (23 page)

And then the note. Those few words, telling him she loved Joaquín.

Seth’s eyes lost their softness. He put out his hands to clasp her neck, but then stopped. He had loved her, loved her from the first. He had stood back while she made up her mind whether she wanted to be a woman or not. He had waited and watched, for a long time. He had killed three men for her. Cat Man and his two cohorts had been sitting peacefully by their campfire. He had not even given them a chance to go for their guns. He had killed them and ridden away. For her!

He began removing his jacket. When he had removed
all his clothes, he lifted the light blanket and climbed into bed with Morgan.

Gently, he began caressing her soft breast. He brought his lips to hers, barely touching their sweetness, then delicately nibbling at her lower lip. In her sleep, Morgan felt the longed-for touch of Seth. She moved against him, parting her lips. The tip of his tongue traced the outline of her lips.

His kisses traced a sensuous path across her cheek to her earlobe. His teeth nipped the tender piece of flesh. “Morgan,” he whispered. She nuzzled closer to him. “
Mi querida
.” Her eyes opened slowly, languidly, her arms going up to encircle his broad shoulders.

She opened her eyes fully and then opened her mouth to scream. Seth silenced her lips with his own. Her eyes were wild and she began to struggle.

Quickly, he put his fingers over her lips. “Don’t you know your husband?”

She looked at him with astonishment for one long moment and then tears rushed to her eyes. “
Seth
. I knew it was you. I
knew
. Oh, Seth! What happened?” She pulled him to her. “Seth, I love you. I love you so much.” She couldn’t see his jaw clench, his eyes freeze. “Seth … did Joaquín finally admit that he—”

His hand covered her mouth. His eyes were dark with passion. “Later, sweet. Later you can tell me all about it.”

Doubt flickered a warning in her mind. But he was so urgent.

“Have you missed me? Did you think about me?” His hands moved across her body, making her ache with longing. Her arms pulled him closer and she arched against him.

“Yes, oh yes,” she whispered into his ear as she kissed it, pulling the earlobe between her lips.

“You’re eager for me, aren’t you, Morgan?” Again,
she had the awful feeling, the doubt. What was strange about Seth?

He removed her gown. Her body screamed for him to take her. His caresses were tantalizing, making her lose her senses. It was as if she were only a body, only desire.

His lips traveled down her neck, the weight of his body pressing on her. Her fingers pulled him closer. He felt her urgency and this made his kisses even slower.

“Seth, Seth,” she moaned over and over.

His lips traveled down her body, across her breasts, one hand holding hers to keep her clutching fingers still, the other softly kneading her inner thigh. His lips traveled down and down, touching all of her.

When he reached her feet, he kissed each of her toes, raking the soft fleshy part against his lower teeth. “Please, Seth, now, now.”

Abruptly, he turned her over, his teeth and tongue and lips making a trail across her smooth, perfect skin.

When he reached her neck, he turned her over and began to make love to her. He kept his lips on hers to still her loud moans. They reached their peaks together.

They lay quietly for a moment, wrapped in ecstasy. Their bodies were one, and inseparable.

Seth moved to lie beside her. He kissed her neck, her eyelids.

Morgan’s body was on fire. Her fingertips were extremely sensitive, the nerves wonderfully alive. They sought Seth’s body, searching the length of his broad back, feeling each muscle and the texture of his skin. She kissed his neck, running her tongue along the muscles, the sinews.

Her fingers entangled in the hair on his chest, her lips following the sensitive path of her fingers. Her hands found his maleness and lingered, gently stroking until she heard low sounds from Seth’s throat.

She climbed on top of him and this time, slowly, they
came to new heights of desire and finally collapsed in one another’s arms, sated.

Content, Morgan slept, her cheek against Seth’s chest, the hairs tickling her nose. Seth’s low voice woke her from the first happy sleep she had had in many months.

“Did you do this with the men at Madame Nicole’s?”

“Mmmm?” she snuggled closer to him. Seth was here, alive and in her arms. She kissed his chest.

“Was Joaquín a good lover? Did he make your hips move and your hands claw?”

Her eyes flew open. “Seth, must I tell you …?”

He roughly pushed her from him. “No, I must tell you. I know about them all. I know about Madame Nicole.”

Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes were wide. “No.”

He stepped out of the bed, reaching for his clothes. “Tell me, did you react for all of them as you did for me? No wonder you’re such an expensive whore. Tell me, how much do you share with your ‘partner’? Does he set you up or do you find your own men?”

“No,” she whispered, the tears coming to her eyes. She was on her knees in the bed, her damp, tangled hair falling about her. “No, Seth. That’s all wrong.”

“Well, ma’am, you are certainly fetching like that. I don’t imagine you’d pleaded with many men. Does it hurt your vanity to find that you can be walked away from? I know you are used to doing the walking.”

Her sobs were choking her, her body shaking.

Seth almost reconsidered, but quickly he picked up his hat and walked to the French doors. “I remember some time ago, when you left a light in the window so I could climb to your bedroom. It’s ironic, isn’t it?” He paused and reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew several gold coins. He tossed them to the floor beside the bed. “You can share that with your decorator
friend. Goodbye,
wife
.” He made the word sound ugly. And almost instantly, he was over the balcony.

When Theron found Morgan an hour later, his patient was calm, sitting quietly against the back of the bed. Something was very wrong. He preferred her hysterics to the icy calm he saw in her eyes now. He sat by her, took her cold little hand.

“What’s happened?”

She turned to him and smiled. It was a smile Theron had never seen before, and it made chills run down his spine. “I have just had a visit from my husband, the man I’ve loved so long, the man I’ve dreamed of day and night.” Her voice was flat.

“After he had used my body and made me react, he taunted me, accused me of having many men.”

“Morgan, I really don’t understand any of this. Why would he want to hurt you so? Doesn’t he understand our relationship?”

She laughed. “I don’t believe my husband understands anything. He wouldn’t allow me to explain. He saw only the wrong side of everything.” Morgan began telling Theron of her marriage to Seth, how she had asked him to marry her, had fought her feelings for him. She told of Seth’s jealousy and Joaquín’s treachery.

“He never even asked you if the note was true? It never occurred to him that you had been taken against your will?”

“It is ironic, isn’t it? He has tried, judged and hanged me—and I am innocent. I don’t believe I want to talk anymore, Theron.”

The look in Morgan’s eyes frightened him. Always, she had a kind word. Always, she smiled. But now her lips curved into a snarl.

“Maybe we could find him. Find him and tell him the truth of what has happened to you—that none of it was your fault.”

She turned on him, eyes flashing. “I should go to him and tell him that I am innocent? What should I do, plead with him, beg him to forgive me—for nothing? I loved him and he should have been able to see that. I told him so tonight, but he chose to ignore it. He believes I was one of Nicole’s whores. What if I had been? What if his pure little Morgan
had
been tarnished by other men? Should I kill myself in that case? He didn’t care enough for me to even listen to me, to find out what had happened to me all this time.”

She took a breath and leaned back against the pillows. “He was not the man I thought he was. I never want to hear his name again.”

“Morgan, please listen…”

“I would like to sleep now. I believe Mrs. Farrell will want us to spend the day discussing her dining room, and I need strength to face that woman’s taste. Good-night.”

Theron kissed her forehead, blew out the lamp, and left the room.

Morgan fell asleep, remembering Seth’s back as he disappeared over the balcony.

Morgan became more and more involved in her work with Theron. In the next months, she tried constantly to keep herself from thinking of Seth, from fully realizing that he was alive. Did he have a mistress? Was some other woman taking care of him?

All she had to do was find him, tell him that Joaquín had forced her to write the note, that she had not had any other men… No! How dare she even think of pleading with him! He was a vain, arrogant man and she wouldn’t lower herself.

Gradually, Theron’s customers noticed the difference in Morgan. Before, she had met the men’s advances with smiles and jests. Now she tended to sneer at them. She no longer returned their flirting with friendly jibes.

The evenings she spent with Theron often turned into brooding silences. Before, they were hardly ever out of one another’s sight; but now Theron spent some evenings alone.

“Take it away, Jeannette. The very sight of food nauseates me.”

Jeannette took the tray and set it on the dresser. Then she held her hand to Morgan’s forehead.

“Stop it! There’s nothing wrong with me. I just don’t feel like eating.”

Jeannette was calm. Theron had told her about Seth’s attack on his wife. “No, ma’am, there’s nothing at all wrong with you. I’d say that, in a few months, you’ll be perfectly all right.”

“Months! Don’t be absurd! I’m just not feeling well. A few days’ rest and I’ll be fine.”

“I should say in about six months, you should be quite yourself again.”

“Six months! Jeannette, will you stop raving like a lunatic and take that food away? Even the smell of it makes my stomach turn and…” Her face drained. She met Jeannette’s stare.

Smiling the maid picked up the tray and started to the door. “I’m sure Mr. Shaw would want the doctor to check you, to confirm the time. But I think he’ll say six months.”

When Morgan was alone, she leaned back in the bed. “No. It can’t be,” she whispered. Her hands went to her stomach. It was hard, but had a slight new roundness. “A baby … what will I do with a baby? A baby whose father hates his mother?” She remembered her own fatherless childhood. It had hurt her in many ways, being raised without a man around.

The doctor’s visit confirmed what Jeannette had known for some time and Morgan hadn’t even guessed at.

Theron was delighted with the news. “A baby in the house! Delightful! Wondrous! We’ll make the guest room into a nursery. Chinese décor, don’t you think? Of course, I’m very partial to Chinese. Or how about Italian, some clean lines, very fluid? Color. We can do oranges and siennas, or the cool colors.”

“Theron, please. I’ve just found out about this. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.”

“Going to do? Well, of course you’re going to stay right here. Jeannette and I will take care of you. Come along, Jeannette, let’s let Morgan rest for now. We’ll see you in the morning. I’m rather tired, too. This has been a very exciting day.”

Alone, Morgan’s thoughts whirled. A baby, her own child. She smiled. Yes, she wanted this baby, very much. She needed someone to care for, to care about.

But how should she or he be raised?

Her life with Theron was pleasant, but a baby needed more than a mother who decorated people’s homes, a mother whom the townsmen took great delight in trying to pinch. What if her child found out this mother had been sold in a public auction at a brothel? What about Morgan’s inheritance? She had not thought about it in a long time, but if she had a child, she wanted him to be raised in security.

She would go to Albuquerque and meet with her father’s lawyers. Then she’d take her child and go back to Kentucky, and Trahern House.

The thought of Trahern House brought tears to her eyes. Many times when she’d been so happy with Seth, she had laughed at Trahern House, thinking how lonely and barren it would seem to her after her life with Seth. Ah, but now she wouldn’t be alone. She’d have her child.

It took Morgan a week to convince Theron of the wisdom of her plan. She would return to New Mexico and then to Kentucky.

“Morgan, how can you leave? You’re like my little sister. What would life be like without you? Please stay.”

It wasn’t easy to think of leaving Theron or the luxury he provided for her. When she left him, she’d be enitrely on her own, taking care of herself and responsible for another life as well.

A stage line had recently been started, connecting the Santa Fe Trail with the gold fields of California. It was on this stage that Theron booked Morgan’s passage.

The goodbyes were tearful. “If you ever need anything, you know where you have a friend,” Theron told her as she mounted the high steps into the stagecoach.

The return trip to Santa Fe was awful. The coach swayed and bounced with every rock the wheels hit, and there were thousands of them.

They stopped only long enough to change horses, the passengers being forced to grab whatever they could and to eat in the coach. The windows had pieces of canvas that rolled down over them, but a closed coach, with the six unwashed and sweating people, was unbearable. They talked at first, one man in particular trying to get Morgan’s attention, but after the first few days they were all too tired for conversation. In the beginning Morgan had tried to keep her face and hands clean, but when she rubbed her neck and dirt rolled off in her hand, she gave up.

When they arrived in Santa Fe, she was too tired, hungry, and dirty even to remember why she had come. Her legs were cramped and she could hardly stand.

“Here, let me help you with that.” Someone took her hand baggage and she turned to meet a pair of familiar eyes.

“Frank!” she cried, the weariness of her body making her vision blurred.