Susan Johnson (32 page)

Trey was on his feet the moment he saw the tears welling in her eyes. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to the leather couch near the fire and, sitting down, held her in his lap, tucking the long flannel skirt of her nightgown around her bare feet. “It won’t be forever,” Trey whispered, despair shading his silvery eyes. His embrace tightened, the feel of her warm body solace to his troubled mind.

“Summer will be here before we know it,” Empress replied softly, and although her words were sensible, tears were streaming down her face.

“Don’t cry … don’t cry,” Trey pleaded, brushing away the tears with his fingers. “Oh, God,” he whispered, wanting to offer her comfort, wishing there were some to confer, some magic deliverance from this hell. “And you mustn’t go,” he murmured tenderly, kissing her hair, her cheeks, the streaks of salty tears. “There’s no reason for you to go back.” The thought of losing her even for six months was unbearable.

“Don’t ask me to stay. I can’t,” Empress replied, abject
misery overwhelming her. “Not when you’re married to someone else.”

“It’s just a wedding. It’s not a marriage,” Trey said quickly, harshly. “I’m not going to live with her.”

“I still can’t stay,” Empress whispered in a small, sad voice. She couldn’t explain that the thought of another woman married to the man she loved was not some casual arrangement to her. Somehow there was terrifying possession in the act, and a very firm commitment in a legal sense, however cavalierly Trey treated the matter. Valerie Stewart didn’t sound like the kind of woman, either, who would placidly allow her husband to live with another woman. But say Trey was right and Valerie would agree to a divorce, there would be an end to his detention. If Empress could count the days until the six months were over, there was a possibility that she could contend with this devastating blow. But not here, not seeing Trey every day, not close enough to meet the Valerie who would be Mrs. Braddock-Black in her place. She wasn’t that strong. “We’ll go back home as soon as I can walk that last stretch on snowshoes.”

“Very well,” Trey agreed, because he wasn’t going to argue with her now. But he wasn’t going to let her go. One way or another he’d make her stay.

Circumstances came to Trey’s rescue, and he didn’t have to marshal any convincing arguments to make her stay. As it turned out, the children were all struck with the fever that had threatened Empress. Just as she was beginning to feel stronger, Genevieve complained of a sore throat. Five days later Guy was stricken, and so it went, until the house was like a small hospital ward. It was three weeks of mixing poultices and medicines, of soothing fretful children and walking Eduard when he screamed with the ear infection that had developed along with his fever. Trey did most of the walking, for Eduard slept best when Trey held him. But the long hours took their toll on everyone. In some ways it was a blessing, for the days prior to Trey’s wedding passed, detached somehow from Empress’s own small world of feverish children and sleepless nights, fighting death with every medicine at her disposal, with prayers and whispered assurances and love.

They all survived, and for that she gave thanks. Empress hardly noticed the day Trey left for his wedding. She had
fallen into an exhausted sleep at dawn that morning, and Trey had quietly slipped away without waking her. It wasn’t till late afternoon when she woke, the nurses having strict orders to let her sleep, that the unusual silence struck her. And she realized the reason for the quiet house.

Empress cried that evening despite a resolute attempt to stay her tears, and when Genevieve asked her what was wrong, she only said, “I’m tired and I want to go home.”

There had been no simple way to explain the complicated villainy of Valerie and her father, so Empress had simply told the children they were going home as soon as everyone was well, and Trey would follow in the summer when they would marry. No mention was made of Trey’s marriage to Valerie. Trey hadn’t openly disagreed with Empress when she spoke to the children about the change in plans, but in his own way he intended to persuade her to stay.

The church was filled to capacity, although the Braddock-Black family was not out in force; in fact, most of the relatives were conspicuous by their absence. But Valerie had sent out invitations to half the town, and no one stayed away, titillated with the spectacle of a speedy wedding between two people who had not been in company together for quite some time. Bets were taken on the reason Trey had finally succumbed or Valerie had finally accomplished the unaccomplishable, even while all those hazarding realized that the real reason might never be known.

Two carloads of white roses had been brought in from California, and the church resembled, above all, a heavenly scented cloud, so bouffantly massed were the thousands of blooms. Or a funeral parlor, the groom thought, depending on your point of view. Valerie’s eight bridesmaids, all in pink organza, were fluffy counterpoint to the fragrant roses, while the bride was magnificent—there was no other word for it—in seeded pearl Venetian point lace with a twenty-foot train. Trey felt a prisoner, and it showed.

The wedding dinner was singular for its luxury, with ten French chefs responsible for its execution. French champagne had been brought in, in quantity, and all the guests noted that the groom was drinking his share. Immediately after dinner
the orchestra began playing, but the groom broke precedence by declining to dance the first dance with his bride. He preferred, he said, drinking to dancing.

The parents of the groom stayed only long enough at the dinner to salve appearances. Hazard, rumor had it, was not pleased with the match. Gossip suggested the bride was enceinte, and there was talk that the boy had been forced to marry, but it was assumed that would eventually be the way of it in Trey’s case. With his record in the bedroom, it was just a matter of time and pressure from the right family.

Would marriage settle the ladies’ man in Trey? everyone wondered with more curiosity than conviction. Any number of women who propositioned him at his wedding dance thought not. And then, of course, there was his newest purchase, ensconced at the ranch in the bosom of his family. He was a spoiled boy.

By the time the happy bride and difficult groom changed to their traveling clothes and left for their honeymoon, there was a distinct hint of menace in Trey’s expression. One guest was heard to remark that Trey didn’t look prepared for a life of domesticity. To which his companion replied, “Trey’s never been adverse to domesticity but in small doses and with a variety of women. Valerie has her work cut out for her.”

“That pretty thing he bought at Lily’s,” whispers passed from person to person, “is waiting at the ranch.” Malicious eyes gleamed. Maybe he misses her.

Moodily Trey accompanied Valerie to the house she’d purchased with
his
money and stood silently just inside the drawing-room door while she gave up her velvet wrap to a maid and issued orders to the butler for a late supper. He was tired, and the champagne had given him a headache. Or maybe it was keeping the fury under control in front of all the guests that had given him the headache. Valerie’s smug exuberance had done its share, too, toward the throbbing in his temples. Hypocritical bitch! She’d played the part of the glowing bride to the hilt.

After dismissing the servants, Valerie turned in a sweep of claret faille and airily gestured to Trey. “Darling, take off your coat and make yourself comfortable.”

Although he’d married her, beyond that there were well-defined limits of what he would do for her. “I’m not staying,” he said. He had no intention of touching her and taking the chance of being shackled to her in reality. This child wasn’t his, but with different timing, it could have been. He meant to see that that would never happen.

Valerie was nonplussed for a moment. His refusal to stay was one contingency she hadn’t considered. Having accomplished the marriage, she felt secure. “Of course you’re staying,” she said in aggrieved tones. “We’re married. This is our home.”

“This is your home,” Trey rejoined, politely savage, “not mine. Let me know when the baby’s born.” And he turned to go.

She stared at him. At the tall, handsome man she’d schemed so to have. For one flashing moment she almost lost control and screamed and swore at him, but she hadn’t gotten as far as she had by lapses in control. “What will I tell people?” she inquired calmly.

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Trey said from the open doorway. “Good night.”

Empress heard the flurry of activity when Hazard and Blaze arrived home, but she stayed in her room and hoped neither would come in to visit. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to carry on a conversation without breaking into sobs. The last hours had been painful; it was too quiet with the children in bed and nothing but her own company for diversion. Although she understood the necessity for Trey’s wedding, a fearful sense of loss inundated all rational thought. What was he doing now? she reflected tearfully. Was he smiling at his new bride; was she smiling back at him? Did he hold her close when they danced? Did the guests favor the match; did Valerie look beautiful as a radiant bride? Why, Empress deliberated with gloomy despair, had her life been plagued with one disaster after another over the last five years? Was she being punished somehow for unknown infractions? How much more could she take; how many more burdens could her emotions bear before her spirit was broken?

She cried, then, alone and unhappy, and fell asleep with
dreadful, crushing images of Trey and his bride on their honeymoon night.

Trey came back to the ranch late that night, brooding and moody and walking into his darkened bedroom; the man who had been coolly composed throughout the trying day slumped into a chair near the bed and shivered. Slowly his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, and he silently watched Empress in her sleep. His duty had been done. Bitter at the prospect of the ensuing months, he dejectedly found comfort in simply looking at the woman he loved.

She was curled in a nest of quilts and pillows, diminutive in the expanse of the enormous bed, one hand thrown above her head like a young child, her pale hair gleaming like rivers of moonlight in the half-dark. Trey experienced a sudden, gripping fear in this, the nadir hour of his unhappy wedding day, that Valerie and Duncan could somehow keep him from having Empress. He shook off the grotesque demon of alarm forcibly, telling himself it was the late hour, his dour mood, the fatigue of banal pleasantries to a thousand guests. He hadn’t realized he’d sighed until Empress stirred. He watched her eyes open slowly, then quickly when she saw his dark form. She sat up immediately, the silk quilts falling away like rippling water.

“Trey,” she cried, a warm happiness in her voice, and instinctively she leaned toward him until she remembered what had happened that day. She held herself in check then, wondering what he was doing here. And whether she could live another moment without touching him. He was still dressed in his outer clothes, his topcoat only unbuttoned, not taken off, as if he’d been cold, his silk scarf still loosely knotted under his chin.

“It’s my wedding night,” he said, feeling cold and empty, desolation vivid in his deep, quiet voice.

A tear slid down Empress’s cheek, followed quickly by another. Are you more of a harlot when you love a married man? Are you a harlot at all? She didn’t know and it the next moment did not care. She opened her arms.

“Thank you,” Trey said softly, and went to her.

Wordlessly he held her, letting her small, warm body ease
the rancor and melt the icy fear, gently stroking her hair like one might comfort a child. Her cheek lay against the velvet of his lapel, her hands laced around his scarfed neck, and neither spoke. It was enough that he had come and she had welcomed him. Beyond that lay the terrifying future, and if they walked too close to the edge, they might fall into the abyss. So a very large, powerful man who had always faced the world with a fearless intrepidness sat on an immense, rumpled bed, silently, and tightly held a small golden-haired woman to keep the world from crashing down upon them. Dressed as he was in deepest charcoal, topcoat, suit, the sleek sheen of his scarf, the woman looked as fragile as a flower against a brooding storm cloud. But it was her slender warmth, acutely felt beneath his large, strong hands, that pervaded his soul and dissolved the bottomless chill.

The next morning, insinuating rumor floated delicately over breakfast coffee, more robustly across clubrooms, wickedly at Lily’s, or in barrooms as the day progressed. The recalcitrant groom had balked at his wedding night. And gone home to the ranch. It just went to show you, one could depend on Lily’s for prime merchandise.

Valerie’s butler had had one ear to the door—the personnel on the Braddock-Black private train numbered ten—the only servant up when Trey had unexpectedly arrived home had wakened her cousin in town at six in the morning. News travels fast below stairs.

The malicious gossip reached Valerie before her luncheon was brought up. A phone call from an insincere friend who thought she’d like to know, “for her own good.” Having had an entire night to fabricate a plausible explanation, Valerie prevaricated with ease. There had been an emergency at the ranch, she said, requiring Trey’s attention. No, she didn’t know exactly when he’d be back. It depends on the extent of the crisis. The type of crisis? Really, she hadn’t paid much notice once Trey began talking about watts of energy and power plants. “Well, yes,” she supposed, “he isn’t the
only
one capable of handling the situation, but you know how responsible he is when it comes to family business. And, of course, I’m happy, Eunice. Wouldn’t you be if you were married to Trey?”

* * *

It took only a few hours for Valerie to systematically analyze her rival’s position, and another half day to develop a plan of action to counteract said rival. She had no intention of working this hard to land the biggest catch west of the Mississippi, only to find him a phantom husband. Granted, she had his money, her position as Ms. Braddock-Black, but she wanted a husband too. And it wasn’t for his wealth alone or to allay stupid gossip. Trey was, as she knew from considerable experience, the very best in bed, and it rankled her to think of him preferring some little slut to her.