Capture the Sun (Cheyenne Series) (5 page)

      
Carrie closed her eyes and struggled to remain calm, to catch her breath as he thrashed about. His hands and mouth pillaged everywhere, rapidly, roughly. Then he quickly reached between her legs and she flinched. Some instinctive subliminal intuition told her what would happen next as he pushed her legs apart and guided himself to enter her. At first it was only a humiliating pressure, then suddenly, as he broke through her maidenhead, pain blossomed deep inside her body.

      
Noah was aware of the sharp gasp from her and felt the tearing. Good, she was as pure as she seemed! He gloated while he plunged in again and again, losing himself in swift, intense pleasure.

      
It was over quickly, at least there was that. When he groaned and rolled away from her to lie panting on his back, spread-eagled across the bed, Carrie tried to cover herself with the tangled sheets. He seemed oblivious of her now. She laid very still, willing the shivers of revulsion to abate. The wounding, tearing soreness would not go away so easily. This coupling had been rough and cold, devoid of love. Could there be no love, ever?

      
Carrie lay dry-eyed and frozen when Noah finally reached over and doused the candle. Then he pulled the covers over his lower body, paying no further attention to his wife.
Best to let a shocked virgin cool her indignation. Damn shame good women have to be so wooden. Give me a good whore for fun any day, but a wife—that's another matter. Well, she'll never be a lively piece in bed, but then, I can fill that need elsewhere. At least she won't laugh at me or compare me to other men, like Lola did.
 

      
Silently he cursed that bitch and then turned his thoughts to the young beauty lying next to him. He'd have her breeding in a month or two, damn him if he wouldn't! On that positive note, he fell into a deep dreamless sleep while Carrie watched the dark reflections of the Mississippi ebb and flow against the ceiling.

* * * *

      
Noah was always an early riser, and the day after his wedding was no exception. He looked down at his sleeping wife. Her eyes were darkly shadowed and her face pale. He had slept soundly and was unaware that she lay awake for hours. Considering how childlike and frail she looked now, he decided to let her rest for a while. No reason to tax her too much too soon. He must school himself to be patient and let her become accustomed to his ways.
Once she's pregnant, she'll be content, and then I can turn my attentions to other matters,
he thought complacently. Quietly he left the room.

      
Hearing the door click, Carrie awakened, as if climbing out of a dank, menacing cave. She was disoriented as only an exhausted and depressed person can be. Gradually, the previous night came back to her. She shuddered, then sobbed aloud, letting the dam break on the roiling emotions she had held in check for the past several days.

      
I am married to a coldhearted stranger whose bed I must share each night. Oh, it was so rough and degrading. How could I ever have thought...
Her thoughts dissolved in a startled gasp of pain when she slid across the bed to put her feet on the floor. He had hurt her! When she gingerly stood up and looked at the faint smears of blood on the sheets, she whitened. A quick examination of her gown told the tale of their origin.

      
“I must have a bath! Oh, God, I have to be clean!” As if someone had read her mind, there was a discreet tap on the door. Carrie answered, “Who is there?”

      
“Steward, ma'am. Your husband requested hot bath water and a tub. We've brought them.”

      
In a few short moments Carrie was blissfully luxuriating in the hot scented water, restoring her bruised and torn flesh. Youth imparts a certain resiliency, and Carrie found she possessed more of that quality than she had ever suspected. Once she took inventory of her body and assured herself that she would mend, her mind turned to her benefactor. Well, at least he had been thoughtful enough to send the bath. She was grateful, but she was also apprehensive of the coming night.

      
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I could learn to care for him. Perhaps it isn't just the difference in our ages. Even if I'd married Gerald I might .have been just as unhappy with...bed.
Even in her innermost thoughts Carrie couldn't bring herself to say the word “sex,” and she could certainly see no reason to call it “making love”!

      
If only she'd had a female confidante. Her aunt's mores had given her the notion that women weren't supposed to enjoy sex. Perhaps they could not do so even if they were base enough to try.

      
However, Carrie remembered her parents and how much they had loved one another. When she had believed herself in love with Gerald Rawlins, she had certainly enjoyed his kisses. Love. That must be the key to it all. If there could be love, then even if the physical aspect of marriage was not enjoyable, it might at least be bearable.

      
By the time she had finished bathing and dressing for the morning, Carrie's resolve was firm. Noah had been considerate in sending the bath. It was a good sign. She would just have to try harder to breach his defenses, to learn what he was like, to learn to love him. If she could do that, might he not learn to love her as well?

      
Eagerly she looked in the mirror to check her toilette one last time. Her face was a trifle pale, but her fiery hair was piled elegantly high on her head in a sophisticated style that made her look older. Her dress of tan silk trimmed in brown satin was tasteful and beautifully tailored. The matching chocolate hat, slippers, and parasol completed a picture of-refinement. Yes, she would do, Carrie decided.

      
“At least I have the wardrobe to impress him. If he likes the way I look and dress, it's a beginning.” Firmly she opened the door and stepped outside into the bright promise of midmorning sunlight.

      
When Noah saw Carrie moving along the railing, he started to intercept her, then stopped to admire the picture she made and the way the people around her reacted. Male passengers looked with open admiration and women with ill-disguised jealousy. Small wonder. The sun highlighted the dazzling fire of her hair like living tongues of flame, flashing out from beneath her hat. Her delicately sculptured brows arched above bright green eyes, and her pink lips parted in a generous smile as she nodded graciously to fellow passengers. The warm tan and brown tones of her ensemble accented her exotic coloring, enriching the pale ivory complexion and warm red hair.

      
Just wait till the cattle barons in Miles City see her. I could take her to the governor's mansion or even Washington.
Once more Noah congratulated himself on his choice of an aristocratic and refined woman to stand by his side. Yes, she would do, Noah decided.

      
Carrie watched her husband stride across the crowded deck toward her, wending his way by the passengers who were enjoying the invigorating spring sun. He looked robust and commanding as his strong white teeth flashed a striking smile. She returned it.

      
Through breakfast they chatted of inconsequential things. He told her more about Montana, the ranch, and Miles City, which was the nearest town of any size. It was easy to get him to discuss his empire.

      
“You'll like Montana, Carrie. It's a land of men who'll appreciate a woman of your obvious breeding and refinement. Real ladies are still rare and treasured. I'll be proud to show you off as my wife.”

      
The words were superficially meant as a compliment, she was certain. However, Carrie couldn't help but feel there was an underlying proprietarily tone to his voice that made her uneasy. Before she reconsidered it, she spoke out, “I'm only human, Noah, and not all that refined, really. I'd like to be your helper, your companion, someone you could learn to love. I don't want to be on a pedestal—”

      
Before she could go on, he fixed her with a stern glare while that patronizing schoolmaster look came over his face once more. “Love.” He fairly sneered the word. “Let me make one thing clear in that vacant, beautiful little head of yours, my darling. Love is for moonstruck boys and flighty old ladies. It's a myth. A wife need only be concerned with providing heirs for her husband and acting as his gracious hostess. In return for your loyalty and duty to me, I'll provide handsomely for you. I'll see to your every material need and leave you and our children well provided for when I die. Forget the love nonsense and accept what I offer you—a fine social position, wealth, comfort, security. That's what life is really about.”

      
Carrie sat very still during his discourse, trying to discern some cause for the bitterness she sensed in his cold, logical proposition. “Have you never loved anyone?’’ She couldn't seem to stop herself as she whispered the question.

      
Noah looked exasperated for a second. Then he paused briefly and considered. “Never the romantic dribble you're thinking of. When a man spends a lifetime on the frontier building an empire to bequeath to his descendants, he is forced to give up some things. All the people I cared for died long ago. I'm too old to begin again. Don't ask that.”

      
Sadly, she looked at his piercing blue eyes and harsh expression. “I'll have to accept your terms in other words. But if—if we have children, they'd need a father's love. She let her words trail off, uncertain and embarrassed to be discussing such a personal thing, recalling the night they had just shared.

      
“I shall do my best to be a dutiful father, Carrie. But first, you shall have to be a fruitful wife, won't you?”

      
Something in his tone of voice was even more lewd than the veiled suggestion about her fertility. She felt patronized and cheapened beyond measure. Her temper, repressed for years in Patience's house, flared now. “How dare you! I'm not some piece of livestock—a...a horse!”

      
Noah was out of patience and determined to quickly bring this romantic fencing of hers to an abrupt end. “Ah, yes, my dear, you are precisely that—a brood mare—to be well ridden!”

      
Carrie blanched, both appalled at his crudity and devastated by his cruelty. She could not meet his eyes. Gripping her coffee cup securely in both hands, she raised it to her mouth and took a steadying gulp of its scalding strength. So, she would be his ornament and his brood mare, the two “duties of a lady.” How foolish she had been to quest for love.

CHAPTER THREE

      
After the humiliating setdown from Noah that morning, Carrie confined herself to their cabin for the duration of. the day. Noah demanded a command performance for dinner at the captain's table that evening. Her withdrawn, spiritless demeanor when he came to their stateroom made him furious, as did her simple light-blue muslin gown with the sprigged embroidery around its high collar.

      
“Take off that washed out, fluffy, little girl's dress and wear something with class.” He ran his long fingers rapidly across her gowns, hanging neatly in their narrow wardrobe by the bedside, and produced a brilliant turquoise silk. It had long, tapered sleeves and was cut very low in front, with sparkling jet beads trimming the bustline, waist, and skirt. The dress was so daring and sophisticated that Carrie had decided not to buy it, but a clever saleswoman must have seen the same potential Noah did, for she had convinced Carrie it was perfect for her.

      
With his eyes boring into her trembling body, she stripped off the simple blue and donned the turquoise. When her fingers fumbled nervously with the buttons, he perfunctorily turned her around and efficiently fastened them up the back. She endured his ministrations silently.

      
“I will not present a sullen, spoiled child as my wife at the captain's table tonight. You will act like a refined, gracious woman.” He finished the buttoning and turned her around, holding her shoulders in his hands, willing her to face him.

      
His fingers felt like claws, she thought in revulsion as she forced herself to look at his face and acknowledge his command with a nod. The tenor of their relationship for the duration of the trip seemed set from that moment on.

      
Noah had not exaggerated the length or arduous nature of the journey. The comforts of the steamer were soon forsaken for a brief overnight stay in St. Paul, Minnesota, the end of the Diamond Jo Line's run upriver. Carrie spent a lonely day sitting in a plush silk chair by the window of their hotel room, overlooking the rushing currents of the mighty river she had just left. She wanted desperately to float back south to St. Louis—but to what? Home was lost to her now. Really it had been lost when Naomi and Josiah had died five years earlier. She must continue her rocky journey with Noah Sinclair to his distant kingdom. He concluded his business the following day and finally deigned to take her out for dinner.

      
The next morning they boarded a Northern Pacific Railroad car for Dakota Territory. It was noisy, jarring, and unbelievably dirty. After a scant few hours of inhaling thick, sooty coal smoke, Carrie knew she'd never be clean again. The windows of the passenger cars had to be opened for ventilation, but the soot from the train's engine whipped inside and enveloped everyone, allowing little freedom to breathe.

      
The physical misery of her passage west was compounded by psychological pain inflicted by her husband. Whenever they were permitted the privacy of a night's rest in a stopover hotel or roadhouse, Noah insisted on bedding her, coldly and perfunctorily, almost as if it was an onerous task. She endured his attentions woodenly, in aching exhaustion. It seemed to Carrie that he derived more satisfaction from breaking her spirit than he did from his sexual release in her flesh. Whatever his motivation, she was being defeated.