Miner's Daughter (18 page)

“And it’s not fair! I can’t help it if I grew
up poor. It’s not my fault my father wasn’t a rich
millionaire!”

“What other kind is there?” Tony muttered
under his breath.

“Don’t you dare make fun of me!”

Even though she was looking at his profile,
she saw him roll his eyes.

“And don’t do that, either! I’m asking you to
do me favor, blast you! And it isn’t an easy thing for me to do,
either, since I know very well what you think of me.”

“I doubt that.”

“Oh, yes I do.” She lowered her voice to a
menacing pitch. “You hate me. You hate the very thought of me. You
think I’m beneath you.”

“Oh, for God’s—”

“Don’t interrupt me!” She’d gone shrill
again. “Well, instead of picking on me all the time, why don’t you
teach me what to do? Huh? Why don’t you try that for once?”

Mari threw herself back against the seat
cushion, huffed furiously, crossed her arms over her breasts,
sucked in a gallon of air flavored with the sweet smell of orange
blossoms, clamped her teeth together, commanded herself not to cry,
and fumed. She felt so godawful stupid about her tantrum, she
couldn’t bear to think about it, so she dwelt instead on the
injustice Tony Ewing had done her ever since their first
meeting.

The conceited so-and-so. Who did he think he
was, anyway? God Almighty? Well, he wasn’t. He was just the
stuck-up son of a city snob who had more money than brains, and
Mari wasn’t going to take it anymore.

“Okay.”

Mari’s whole body jerked as if her bones had
been replaced by clock springs. She jumped about a foot and
swiveled on the plush seat so fast, she nearly gave herself
whiplash. “What?”

Tony turned his head slightly and frowned at
her. “You needn’t screech anymore, Mari. I said okay. I think
that’s a good idea.”

What? What did he think was a good idea?
Mari’s brain was so scrambled, she couldn’t even remember what
she’d hollered at him.

“I reject absolutely that nonsense about me
hating you, but I do think you have a sound idea there. If you’re
taught what’s expected of you in public, you’ll be less apt to feel
uncomfortable when the picture opens and you have to attend
premieres and parties and so forth.”

“What—” She had to stop and clear her throat.
“What’s a premiere?” For that matter, what was a party? The town of
Mojave Wells, whose inhabitants were sociable and liked each other,
didn’t go in much for formal parties and so forth. Somebody’d host
a picnic or a barbecue from time to time, but a party? Mari
couldn’t recall ever attending one.

Tony honored her with a brief smile. Mari
recognized the smile as the type a teacher might bestow on a slow
student who was performing slightly better than usual. Her heart,
which had been racing and hammering and behaving in a manner not
generally accepted of hearts, slowed and started to sink.

Good God in heaven, what had she done now?
Why had she opened her darned mouth? And, if she had to open her
mouth, why had she yelled at Tony? No matter how foolish and
inadequate she felt in his company, her feelings weren’t his fault.
If there was any fault at all in the circumstances separating them,
it was accidental. He couldn’t help it if she’d been born poor any
more than she could help it that he’d been born rich.

It was for darned sure that neither of them
could go back before their births and make their backgrounds more
equitable. Mari had a wretched feeling that’s what she was really
mad about.

She wanted to be Tony Ewing’s equal,
socially, intellectually, and financially. She wanted to know if he
could care for her if their backgrounds weren’t so blasted
different. She wanted to stand a fighting chance to win his
affection.

What a miserable truth to discover at this
point. And there wasn’t a single, solitary thing she could do about
it, because she’d already opened her foolish mouth and asked her
stupid question. And he’d accepted.

Darn it, sometimes life just stank.

In spite of Mari’s most recent attack on his
character, honor, and moral fiber, Tony felt pretty good about
life. And about her.

So, she was beginning to understand the
necessity of appropriate dress and behavior, was she? And she’d
actually, honestly and truly, asked for his help. What a change.
What a coup. What an astonishing about-face. Watching her out of
the corner of his eye, Tony knew he was going to enjoy this
process. He’d been longing to get his hands—so to speak—on Mari
Pottersby ever since they first met. Now he had her approval to do
it.

He couldn’t wait to begin shaping her into a
proper lady. It would be his great pleasure to beget—so to speak—a
new Mari. Working closely together, they could fashion her into
something special. Why, once they got entangled—so to speak—with
each other, who knew what might happen?

Hell, as Tony squinted at her slantways so as
not to upset her any more than she was already upset, he thought
that one of these days, if she was willing to follow his advice and
guidance, she could be a truly remarkable lady. She was already a
remarkable female. It was the
lady
part that needed
work.

“We’ll begin tonight,” he told her with
glee.

She jumped and clasped her hands together in
her lap. “What? I mean, I beg your pardon?”

He frowned. There was no need for her to be
nervous about this. He didn’t intend to be an unkind tutor. “I
said, we can begin tonight.”

“Begin what?”

Her huge brown eyes, opened wide and staring
at him at the moment, were one of her best assets, and Tony
intended to see that she used them well. The passenger-side tire
rattled over something, and he swung his attention back to his
driving. Shoot, he’d better watch out, or he’d crash the car, kill
them both, and all of his hard work on Mari’s behalf would go for
naught. Not that he’d done any yet, but he intended to.

“I said we can start your education tonight.
After we wash up at the Melrose, I’ll take you out to dinner and
maybe a club.”

“A club?” A fearful note had crept into her
voice.

“You know,” Tony said, grinning at the
notion, “a nightclub. A nightspot. Where there’s dancing and
music.”

“Um, I can’t dance. Very well, I mean.”

“No problem. I’ll teach you. There’s nothing
to it.”

“Oh.” He could tell she didn’t believe it.
She would. He’d see to it.

He heard her swallow and turned to peek at
her. He didn’t let his gaze linger, no matter how much he wanted
to, because he didn’t want to cause an accident.

“It’ll be fun.”

“Will it?”

“Sure, it will. And, don’t forget,” he added,
in case she thought to ask if her Peerless duties included
nightclub patrol, “this is all for your education and for your
future. If you do a really good job in
Lucky Strike
, and the
public comes to love you, you could make lots more money in the
pictures.”

“Oh.”

Most of the women he’d met would kill to get
into the pictures, except those excruciatingly proper ones from
back East who believed everything and everyone in the world who
didn’t belong to their set were beneath them. He couldn’t conceive
of why Mari seemed indifferent.

Oh, yeah, now he remembered. That damned mine
of hers. Tony wished she could get her mind away from that useless
pit.

“Um, I don’t think I really want to do any
more pictures after this one,” she said in a soft voice. “I don’t
think it’s, um, up my alley or something”

Damn. Tony commenced scowling, wondering how
he’d overcome this one. Then he brightened. It didn’t matter. She
still wanted to learn how to behave in public; that part hadn’t
changed. If she didn’t have the added motivation of the moving
pictures to spur her education, it didn’t matter. He could still
have a lot of fun with her. So to speak.

“That’s all right,” he said. “We’ll still
start your education tonight. If you don’t like the nightclub, we
don’t have to stay long.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to sound so darned miserable,
Mari. I’m not going to beat you or anything. I thought you wanted
to do this.”

She heaved another sigh. “I do, I guess.”

“Well, then. Just trust me. I’m a good
teacher for this sort of thing.”

“Are you?”

He shot her a grin. “Sure.”

She didn’t appear reassured, but Tony’s mood
had been rising ever since they’d left Madame Dunbar’s place, and
he wasn’t worried. He’d treat her kindly, she’d learn, and who knew
what might happen? Several interesting thoughts flitted through his
mind, but he decided he’d best not dwell on any of them. For one
thing, they might lead to disappointment for him. Worse, they might
lead Mari to consider him a cad, and he’d lose her forever.

He didn’t mean lose her, as when a man loves
and loses a woman, of course. He only meant . . . Well; he knew
what he meant.

Motoring south on Fair Oaks Avenue, they’d
left Pasadena and civilization behind and were now driving past an
extensive sycamore grove. Tony breathed deeply, enjoying the fresh
air of the country

After several miles of quiet, Tony said, “So,
do you like it here, Mari? I’ve thought about maybe moving to
Southern California. It’s . . . oh, I don’t know. It’s nicer than
back East. At least the weather is.”

It would also remove him from the
octopus-like influence of his father. Tony’d been writhing under
his father’s thumb for much too long. Not that he worked for his
father. He’d long ago made sure that he had his own business
interests. What’s more, they’d prospered and he was now a rich man
in his own right. But his father was always after him to go into
the family business.

Tony would rather kill himself. Not that he
didn’t respect his old man, but he knew him too well to want to
work with or for him. Maurice Ewing was a master manipulator, a
conscienceless bastard, and an almost unstoppable money-making
machine.

The reason Tony had agreed to this plan, to
come out here to watch over Maurice’s investment, was mainly that
it would give him a chance to investigate a part of the country
that intrigued him. Tony even had investments of his own out here.
Several orange processing plants, oil refineries, health spas and
resorts, borax mines, and fish-canning factories owed a good deal
of their founding monies to Tony Ewing.

Now that he was here and was seeing Southern
California for himself, he liked it even better. There seemed to be
something invigorating in the very air.

“You didn’t like the weather in Mojave
Wells.”

He turned, distracted from his happy
daydreams, to see Mari eyeing him resentfully. With a sigh, he
turned again to the road. “I know. I don’t like the weather in
Mojave Wells. Too hot. But look around here. Isn’t this nice? Sure,
it’s warm, but look at all the shady trees and all the green stuff
growing. It’s very pleasant. Don’t you think so?”

She sighed, too, and admitted, “Yes. It’s
very pleasant?”

It sounded to Tony as if she wished it
weren’t, and he wondered why. Then, again, he remembered that
damned mine of hers.

That must be it. She didn’t want to like it
here, because that would make going back home and tackling that
hole in the ground even more of a wretched business than it already
was. His heart twanged painfully, before he made it stop. She’d
made her bed. If she didn’t have sense enough to climb out of it
when it became obviously worthless, that was her fault.

Hers and her father’s. Damn. Tony wished he
hadn’t thought about her maniacal father.

In an effort to keep himself out of the rut
Mari seemed determined to occupy, he said cheerfully, “I’ll bet
there are all sorts of opportunities for a bright young lady in
these parts. I understand there are lung hospitals all over the
place. I’ll bet you could nurse in one if you wanted to.”

He could feel her staring at him. Darn it, it
wasn’t his fault she was stupidly single-minded. He said somewhat
tartly, “Yeah, I know you’re not a trained nurse. You’re a miner.
But the mine isn’t paying, and never will, and you might as well
face it and decide to do something else.”

She sniffed. He couldn’t tell if it was a
disdainful sniff or not, but he had his suspicions.

“Okay, okay. I know you promised your old man
you’d work his mine, but honest to God, Mari, you can’t keep on
sacrificing yourself for him forever.”

“It’s not a sacrifice.”

He gaped at her, incredulous. “What do you
mean, it’s not a sacrifice! Look at you! You’re a beautiful young
woman, and you’re killing yourself in that damned mine! That’s not
only a sacrifice, it’s a pointless one.” He took in her hard
expression, set lips, and indignant eyes, and slammed his hands on
the steering wheel. “Oh, hell, it’s useless to talk to you about
anything.”

After a few moments, Mari said quietly, “It’s
not useless to talk to me about how ladies behave.”

He squinted at her again before turning back
to the road. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll talk to you about how ladies
behave.”

Big deal.

Mari awoke the morning after her very first
night on the town any town feeling like a princess in a fairy tale.
Last night had been a dream come true.

First Tony had brought her to this incredible
hotel. She blinked into the pale dawning light in the luxurious
room and, if she hadn’t felt the sheets around her, would have
believed herself to be dreaming yet. He’d been utterly casual about
it, as if he stayed in places like the Melrose Hotel all the time
and it was nothing special.

That was probably true of Tony, but it was
special to Mari. She tried to imprint every detail of its elaborate
architecture, fine furnishings, lavish carpets, hoity-toity
bellboys, and everything else in between on her brain so she’d
never forget it, even if she lived to be a hundred and ten.