Fifteen days. The preening lout. With fists clenched, she listened to what was surely the sound of her heart breaking. Or perhaps the closing of a door to any happiness she might have expected with this man. He was abominable. In all her imaginings, she had not expected to hate him so. Had actually hoped she could learn to love him. Sadly, it was already clear that would never happen.
“Well, what have you to say?”
She stared past him through the windows and across the barren plain. As barren as her life would be here at Fairhaven. “It sounds…lovely.” She swallowed the sob that crept into her throat. Couldn't help gazing toward the window once again.
Movement wavered through the wash of unshed tears. The young outlaw exited the barn, climbed onto the wagon and tossed down a bag of what must be tools. The large bald man joined him and they lifted something rather large from the back and carried it to the center of the barnyard. She recalled how the outlaw had tipped his hat at her, green eyes glinting with the sheer joy of his escapade, as if it were some sort of game he played. How agilely he had leapt from the train into the saddle of a running horse. What was he doing here? Perhaps he was going to rob Fairhaven. What a delightful idea that was. She would be pleased to assist him. Perhaps she could convince him to take her up behind him in the saddle, sweep her away.
Prescott cleared his throat, and she returned her attention to the room. He lowered himself into the chair, leather creaked, and he opened a ledger and fanned one hand in the air. “Well, you may go now. Be ready to leave for your fitting after the midday meal.”
He did not look at her again, nor did he so much as glance out the window to learn what she found so fascinating. Odious, self-centered man. Head held high, she strode from the sumptuous room without honoring him with a word. Perhaps she would help the outlaw carry away all this distasteful show of wealth.
In the hallway she glanced longingly toward the front doors. Long streamers of sunlight flowed through the leaded glass windows and splattered on the wide board floors. Escape was all she could think of. With a small cry, she lifted her skirts and hurried across the entry. At the ornate double doors, she didn’t hesitate, but flung them open. Plunged outside into a brisk wind that twisted her heavy skirts and loosened curls of carefully pinned hair.
Leaned into its embrace, she breathed in the prairie fragrances to clear the tobacco-whiskey odor of the offensive man she would soon marry. Let her thoughts drift away to the handsome outlaw. Was he still here? And why? Perhaps he led a double life and no one but she knew who he really was. How exciting and how dangerous, but why else would he be here in the guise of a workman? She must find out.
Because she should not, she brazenly lifted her skirts and hurried around the corner of the house toward the barn. Impossible to run in the heavy toilette. She would find the man with the merry eyes, beg him to take her away. Flee with him across the windy prairie. Certainly a totally absurd idea: a vision of her and the handsome outlaw riding across the plains on the back of a magnificent black stallion. But the fantasy suppressed the unsavory thoughts of her upcoming marriage to the dreadful Lord Blair Prescott. Though it sounded more like something Tyra would dream up, she could not rid her mind of the images.
Nearing the wagon, she slipped into the shadows of the large building. An acrid odor reminiscent of smoke from the locomotive teased her nostrils. The odd contrivance the two men had lifted from the back of the wagon put out enormous heat and released sparks into the wind. Inside its belly was a bed of glowing coals.
From the structure came a clattering as of something being dropped. She walked toward the gaping door. Though the walls of the barn were framed, the rock-work hadn’t been completed, nor was the roof finished. Sunlight poured through the rafters. When she stepped past the doorway the scent of horses and hay and leather assailed her nostrils.
The huge man, wearing a stained apron over his bare chest, came close to sending her toppling, grabbed her in a strong grip to keep her upright and let out an exclamation nearly as robust as he himself. He smelled of sweat and smoke, not nearly as unpleasant as had the man she’d just left.
“Whoa, there young miss. I almost ran you down,” he said with a joviality that endeared him to her.
She could not take her eyes off his bare skin, gleaming with perspiration. Men did not go about without shirts at St. Ann’s, and so this was a new sight, one she enjoyed immensely “I…I am sorry, I did not see you."
The man laughed heartily. “That’s quite all right, young miss. It’s not everyday I can have the pleasure of such an unexpected and enjoyable jolting, if you’ll pardon my saying so. And who is it you want to see?” He seemed not at all unsettled to have her catch him only partially dressed.
Now that he asked, she wasn’t sure she should pursue this. To keep from fleeing, she held herself tightly in check. Her tongue tied itself in knots, not from fright but from giddy anticipation. What would she say to the outlaw if indeed it was truly him she had seen, and not simply her imagination?
“Hello, there, you’re the man who robbed the train I was on, and I just wanted to say hello?” No, no. That would never do. How about, “I wanted to thank you for not shooting me yesterday when you robbed the train?” That probably would not be proper either.
The bald man interrupted her reverie. “Well, now, young miss, if you don’t know who you’re looking for, I don’t think I can help you. What did you say your name is?”
Nervously, she glanced around, still not seeing the young outlaw. She could hardly ask for him.
She cleared her throat. “Oh, I am sorry. I am Wilda Annette Duncan. I only arrived yesterday from England, and I was curious, that is all. I thought I saw someone with you…I thought I might have met him before.”
“You mean Joshua? My helper. He’s in yonder stall.” Before she could stop him, he shouted, “Joshua, someone here to see you.”
“Yeah, what is it, Smith?” came the voice she remembered so well.
Why was she so taken by him? Hearing his voice sent chills up her arms. Probably because of that earlier ridiculous fantasy. What if he saw that desire in her features? Too late to run, though.
From out of the glaring bars of sunlight pouring through the roof, the younger man strode like some graceful animal. He wore no shirt either, only one of those stained leather aprons like the blacksmith’s. Seeing him like that, bare muscular arms, broad shoulders, chest only barely hidden behind a swath of leather, lit a ball of flame in her stomach. No doubt about it, this was the man who had robbed the train. He’d cut his hair, but it was still a tousled mass of dark curls.
“Yes, hello?” he said. “Who is it?” Once he had a good look, his eyes went to flint. Like prey under the aim of a hunter’s gun, he appeared ready to flee.
Blast it all, she could not take her gaze off the fine coils of dark hair above the apron’s front and his skin the color of tea. She could not believe she stood thus, staring speechless at a nearly naked man.
He relaxed. Something in her manner must have reassured him. “I’m sorry, I remember you, but I don’t know your name.” He appeared to be much too amused, and the statement brought her out of her shameful imaginings.
How brazen he was, and no longer in the least afraid she would reveal his secret. Was her intent that easy to read?
“Hello, uh, Joshua. My name is Wilda. I thought I knew you when you arrived, but now I see I was mistaken.”
He grinned, revealing very white teeth, the canines slightly prominent. Wolfish. “Ah, too bad about that. I would be happy to know a lady such as yourself.” After a moment, when she only continued to stare, he went on. “Wilda, did you say? What a nice name for such a beautiful lady. I’m sure I remember you from somewhere. It’ll come back to me.” Once again he smiled as if daring her to remind him of the robbery, then gestured casually toward the house. “Quite a place. Are you just visiting or are you kin to this fella, Prescott?”
Again, she wished she had an interpreter for the odd words they used in this country. Kin? What was that? However, she needed no one to explain the desires that swelled within her, striking her dumb so she couldn’t reply. A vision of her earlier fantasy overpowered her. On the horse’s back, her behind him, arms locked about his waist, his naked waist, their unclothed bodies pressed together. Moving, touching, rubbing against one another in rhythm with the undulating movement of the great black horse between their legs.
Heat rose from her breasts to her cheeks. She might have swallowed something alive, something that slithered about tickling all her secret places, bringing them to life as well.
Dear God in Heaven, what would the nuns say?
“Miss Wilda?” he inquired and touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Her flesh jerked under his hand. That he’d actually touched her was shocking. She was not, as he said, okay. She definitely was not, but she could not tell him that. Nor could she tell him what was going on inside her. A sensation she had never before experienced. She wished her mother were alive so she could explain those feelings to her. But then, if her mother were alive, she would not be standing here, would she? What an odd realization. The twists and turns life took were indeed strange.
She forced herself to carry on a conversation with this man so they would not have to part. “Oh, yes, I am fine. I am so sorry to have interrupted your work. I was looking for…” At a loss for words, she waved an arm around, then began to back away from the heat, the smell, the look of him.
Without saying anything, he reached out, came close to touching her again. How she wished he would. Even so, her arm felt on fire just being near him.
The man called Smith interrupted. “Don’t you worry your head none, little miss. Your kind of interruptions are welcome anytime. But we better get back to work before the master of the house finds us lollygagging.”
“Yes, we wouldn’t want to be caught…lollygagging,” Joshua repeated, winked at her, pulled back his hand.
Unable to stand the pressures building inside another moment longer, she raced from the barn and out into the scorching heat of the prairie sun, where she leaned against the wagon gasping for air. Under the heavy clothing, her skin was slick and wet.
Joshua, hmmm? Hadn’t the man on the train said the outlaw’s name was Calder Raines? Of course, if he was living in hiding, he would not use his known outlaw name.
This stimulating meeting coming so closely upon the heels of her two hateful confrontations with Lord Prescott, had simply been too much for her. She found her way back into the house and upstairs to her room, where she lay on the soft bed and attempted to quiet the roil of tangled emotions that sent her heart racing and her mind whirling.
****
Rowena’s Journal
Friday, June 4, 1875
Fairhaven
Last night I crept down the back stairs into the kitchen and made my way silently into the library hoping to find something of interest to read. To my surprise, Lord Prescott sat behind his desk in total darkness.
“Who’s there?”
His gruff challenge sent my heart skittering and I almost fell into a dead faint. Leaning on the back of a large chair to keep from embarrassing myself, I gasped for air. “I’ll leave, I’m so sorry.” My voice squeaked.
He bade me remain. Not sure what to think of his request, I felt my way on trembling legs amongst the clutter of furniture in the room lit only by a bright half moon. The smell of whiskey and cigar smoke hung in the air. A man’s fragrance, pleasant to me.
I am not sure I can recall word for word what he said, but wish to write it down so as to never forget.
“Keep me company for a moment, would you?” His request, a bit slurred from drink, held a gentle tone I had not yet heard from him. Why could he not speak so kindly to my sister, his wife-to-be?
I nodded and sat, pleased he could not see me clad only in my gown and robe.
“Are you frightened of me?” he asked after a while.
I nodded, remembered he could not see me and said softly, “A bit, Sir.”
“Too bad your sister is not.”
“You wish a wife who is afraid of you?” I could have bitten my tongue once the question was asked.
His silence stretched through many ponderous ticks of the old clock, before he spoke again. “Most men want a wife who bows to their wishes.”
“But that is not fear, rather it is respect.”
I knew what I wanted to tell him about my sister, about our mother, and myself as well, but could not bring myself to do so. I wanted to understand this man, learn why he was so sad and why he hid that sadness behind a cloak of severity. But how to approach the puzzle was beyond me.
He took a sip from the crystal glass. “I have never understood respect. Not between men and women.”
“In the army you must have learned respect of your fellow men, of the officers.”
He remained silent for a long moment, as if wondering how I had known about his army service, but he did not ask. I was a little relieved, as Marguerite Chesshire had told us about his time with Les Zouaves under Napoleon III, and I did not wish to betray her confidence.
When he finally spoke, it was almost a whisper. “Ah, man to man. That is easy. I have no idea how to earn your sister’s respect, nor am I sure I really want to. I fear it is much too late to do so. She despises me. Tell me, why did she agree to this bargain if she so hated the idea?”
I didn’t know what to say to him without betraying Wilda’s trust, and I thought about it a while. He grew restless, and I watched his shadowy figure rise and move, or rather stumble to the window, where the silver moonlight shone on the sculpted planes of his face and cast dark hollows around his eyes.
“Well?” he asked, a bit of the remembered harshness creeping back into his voice.
Gathering my nerve, I asked, “If someone were to offer you what you absolutely must have, what you have dreamed of and lived for, what would you pay?”
I wanted to go to him, touch his arm, seek out the humanity that surely dwelled in his heart, but must admit I continued to be a bit afraid of him.