Texas Lily (38 page)

"I would like that. I wish to introduce you to my grandfather."

"He has introduced himself," Lily replied wryly, finding a topic on which she was on firmer ground. "I'm not at all certain that I meet his approval."

"He is living in the past. Come, I will help you dress." Cade held out his hand.

Lily glanced down at the swelling of her stomach beneath the covers and back to the handsome stranger beside the bed. She couldn't reconcile the Cade who had given her this child with the Luis Philippe who expected her to sleep in elegant Spanish beds and wear mourning. She shook her head, and his offered hand dropped to his side as he regarded her impatiently.

"I will send Juanita."

Cade turned to leave. Lily hesitated, then called after him, "Cade why does your father think we mean to stay here?"

Cade swung around. "Because this is my home."

Lily felt a flutter of fear at the hardness in his dark eyes. "But he will help us to return to my land when all this is over?"

"I will not let you lose your land." Cade reached for the door.

Setting her jaw, Lily forced herself to inquire, "I asked if we would be returning to my land?"

Cade looked down at his hand on the door latch. "I have waited twenty years to claim this place. I am in no hurry to leave."

With that, he walked out.

Shattered, Lily stared at the doorway long after he had passed through it. What had she thought she was doing when she married this man? Hiring a permanent foreman? Why hadn't it occurred to her that he would have a life of his own—one that didn't necessarily require her? And why did she find that possibility so frightening?

Refusing to give in to fear, Lily struggled out of bed and, leaning against the washstand, bathed as best as she could. She would show Cade Luis Philippe de Suela that she wasn't a straw doll to be placed where he would. She might not know where she stood in his life, but she had a life of her own. She was a landowner. He would learn to respect that.

Juanita clucked and scolded when she came in to discover Lily balancing precariously on the edge of the bed and struggling with her new gown, but Lily scowled and she held her tongue. Between them, they settled the elegant folds over Lily's shoulders and pulled it down to encompass her new waistline. Cade had obviously mentioned to the dressmaker that his wife was
encinta,
because the seams had been adjusted accordingly. Either that, or the original owner of the gown had been pleasingly plump.

Not caring to delve into the origins of the gown, Lily pulled the full skirt down over her legs. The silk had been layered in ruffles from the waist down, easily disguising her fullness, although her waist was much larger than was pleasing. The gown had a faintly exotic look to it and wasn't at all what Lily was accustomed to, but she felt rich and not herself wearing it, even to the point of allowing Juanita to play with her hair.

By the time Cade returned, wearing a long frock coat over the brocade waistcoat he had worn earlier, Lily was ready. She eyed his ruffled tie dubiously while he inspected the ringlets of her hair with interest. They had been man and wife for over five months under Indian law, but their knowledge of each other would fit into a thimble.

Taking Lily's arm, Cade escorted her from the room without a word. If she had been expecting a comment on her appearance, she was destined to disappointment. To Lily's surprise, Travis waited in the corridor, but it was Juanita's arm he took. Lily sent her friend a questioning look, but Juanita merely shrugged and took the offered arm without a smile.

"I like your hair like that, Lily," Travis offered as they traversed the clay tiles of the corridor into the courtyard that opened onto the public rooms.

"I don't." Cade's tone was ominous. "I like it down around her shoulders." The look he gave Lily left nothing to translation, and even the couple behind them silenced.

Lily felt his meaning to the bottom of her toes. The only time she wore her hair loose was when Cade had unraveled it before bed. Nervously, she admired the shrubbery that struggled to survive in the neglected courtyard. The Cade who spoke and the Cade she saw were two different people. It would take time to reconcile the differences.

The doors to the dining room were opened to the courtyard to allow the circulation of air. As they entered, the old gentleman waiting inside rose and made an elegant bow.

"Good evening, ladies. I have ordered my best wine brought in to celebrate the occasion. I would welcome all of you to your new home, and most particularly,
senora,"
he bent over Lily's hand, "I would welcome you and hope you will have many long years as lady of this house."

Lily almost choked on the wine in her delicate crystal glass. She shot Cade a smoldering look that should have scorched him to his soul.

Instead, he lifted his glass as if he had handled such daily. With a lifted eyebrow, he saluted Lily and her new position in his household.

Chapter 30

Lily's silence set the mood for the remainder of the evening. As the others sipped politely at their wine, Lily held hers, setting it by her plate untouched. Cade accepted a second glass, and he gave her a look of warning over the rim, but she had no intention of complaining in public. She had been raised a lady, and she would respect the conventions of reticence.

Accustomed to doing as he pleased but not accustomed to a woman who did not throw tantrums when thwarted, Cade matched his grandfather glass for glass as the evening progressed. It had taken twenty years of searching and waiting for this day. He didn't mean for his triumph to go unmarked.

He knew the moment was a precarious one. Raised as Antonio's son, Ricardo had every reason to expect this land to go to him. Antonio de Suela was an arrogant, opinionated man who expected his wishes to be followed, and Cade wasn't at all certain that he would follow them. But for right now, he was being accepted as a legitimate part of the family, and that was more then he had known in a lifetime. He would settle for that. Lily would have to learn to adjust.

"What do you think of the land?" Antonio inquired casually, although the look in his eyes was far from casual.

"The irrigation ditches will have to be re-dug. The river is flooding and taking your soil. Few of the cattle are left. We will need to drive some up from Mexico. The vineyards are gone. Some of the orchard is left, but it is too old to produce. Much work needs to be done."

Cade catalogued his discoveries without inflection. He knew his grandfather was testing him. He knew the old man had returned from Mexico to test him. He didn't mind.

"I will hire men to begin work on the ditches." Antonio broke a piece of his bread and chewed it thoughtfully before continuing. "You will have to go to Mexico for the cattle. I cannot make that journey again. I will give you letters of introduction."

"Not yet,
mi abuelo,"
Cade answered gently. "There is another matter I must see to now that Lily and the children are safe."

Cade was aware that all eyes at the table focused on him. Travis already knew what Cade planned. They had discussed it long since and were agreed. His grandfather was watching intently, and the look on Juanita's face was one of concern, undoubtedly for Lily. Cade felt the daunting blue of Lily's eyes the most. Everything he said or did could affect her and her family. Cade realized this, but he had done the best for them that he was able. It was time now to do what was necessary.

"The future lies in the hands of the man who wins this war," Cade said, giving his explanation for Lily's benefit as he never would have done for anyone else. "I do not relish working for a dictator. I will be joining Houston, if he will have me."

Even though he looked at his grandfather as he said this, Cade knew when Lily quietly dropped her silverware to the table. He turned to see her lay her napkin beside the plate. Because the alcohol slowed his reflexes, he could not rise in time to catch her before she fled the room. He stood there stupidly staring at the place where she had been while Juanita rushed after her.

Shaking his head to clear it, Cade fell back to his seat. He would not fool himself into thinking Lily's flight meant she feared for his safety. She hated him. She was angry that he had not sought her approval first.

She would learn that he was his own man, not a slave or a hired hand. She had the child to consider now. She could do or say nothing to deter him. When he came back, perhaps they could start over again.

His grandfather watched him with more interest than displeasure. Cade lifted his wineglass in salute. "To women."

* * *

It was late by the time Cade finally returned to Lily's room. He did not mean to spend the night in the chair beside the bed again. They had been separated for too much of their marriage. There could be many months of separation ahead. Tonight, he would lie with his wife, he decided with drunken arrogance.

She was asleep when he entered the room, curled up in a ball in the center of the bed. Her hair was pulled back in those accursed braids, but Cade had a vision of her golden loveliness in the candlelight at the table that night. He should have said something polite as Travis had done. But he had said what he meant. He wanted her hair loose and flowing, wanton as her passions.

Unsteadily, Cade stripped off his new clothes, dropping them on the floor without a care for their cost. His grandfather was a generous man when he got what he wanted. It didn't hurt him to wear the clothes that made his grandfather happy. He had learned that lesson a long time ago. Tonight, however—with Lily—he would be himself.

Stretched out naked beside her cotton-clad form, Cade eased his wife into his arms. He had never played the part of chameleon in bed, simply because there had been no need to deceive women he had paid to share it. Now he did not know how to be anybody other than himself when he came to her.

He had been terrified that he would frighten her off. If there had been any way to disguise what he was in those moments of intimacy, he might have tried. But he knew of no way of hiding his desire, of changing his size, or denying his heritage once they were naked and alone.

And it hadn't mattered—not to Lily. Her desire had been as overwhelming as his own, without any need for disguise. Her body had conformed perfectly to his. And she had not looked at him with disgust in the dawn's early light. And that's when Cade had known that he had done the right thing.

He still had his doubts now and then, but not when they were in bed together. If they shared nothing else, they shared this. Cade smoothed the fabric of Lily's nightgown over her breast. She murmured in her sleep as he stroked the nipple rising to his touch. He was already roused and ready for her, and he pressed against her buttocks, hoping to stir her from sleep to better appreciate his needs as she had that morning.

She snuggled closer and sighed, but he received no more response than that. Cautiously, Cade slid her nightgown upward and spread his hand over her abdomen, stroking downward until he touched the soft nest between her legs. She sighed again and grew moist beneath his ministrations, but she did not wake.

It wasn't until he propped up on one elbow to wake her that Cade saw moonlight winking off the bottle beside the bed. Even in his drunken state he recognized that bottle, and he reached to grab it off the table.

In the flickering light he stared at the label of Professor Mangolini's Sleep Nostrum.
Laudanum
. Frustrated, Cade dropped back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. His loins burned with a need that only Lily could satisfy. And he had driven her to taking sleeping drafts.

No one had told him that marriage was such a damned complicated business.

When Lily woke in the morning, Cade was gone. She knew he had been there. The scent of him lingered on the covers. The nightgown tied in knots around her waist spoke for itself. And her careful braids had come uncoiled to spread in tangled waves across the pillow. Touching herself where he would have touched her, she suffered the familiar ache and wished he would return.

It was then that Lily saw the flute lying across the imprint of Cade's head upon the pillow.
He was gone
.

She tried not to acknowledge the desperation that brought. Carefully lifting the flute, Lily examined it in the morning light. It wasn't the same one he carried in his pocket. That one was faded and worn to Cade's fingers. This one was polished and untouched, carved to fit her smaller hand and embellished with an intricate vine along its side. She knew nothing of reeds or woods and didn't know how he had come to make it, but Lily knew Cade had made this one for her.