Rexanne Becnel (18 page)

But distance did little to diminish either the impact of his words or the dreadful truth of his remark. She was ten times a fool, she thought as she scurried up the back steps, then flew around the corner of the porch. She should be fighting fire with fire, yet time and again she was disarmed by his beguiling smile and seductive words.

She paused on the front porch and stared wildly around. What was she to do? she wondered desperately. What was she to do? In despair she took one step down, then another. Finally she sat down on the steps—most unladylike, she thought obliquely—and clasped her hands fervently together.

Prayer seemed her only remaining alternative.

L
ACIE VOWED TO AVOID
Dillon from then on. What he was doing and where he was were of no concern to her, she decided. But late in the afternoon, when she heard the brett returning from Kimbell, she could no longer remain in hiding. Still, she had no intention of being even polite to this man Dillon was bringing here. He was obviously coming to aid Dillon in his quest to discount her claim to Sparrow Hill—and perhaps even to destroy Frederick’s good name. That made him her enemy, and she saw no reason to be hospitable to such a person. She stayed in the shadows of the second-floor gallery as the carriage pulled up to the front of the house. Although she was curious and wanted to see the man, that was as far as it would go.

The man who descended from the brett to be greeted warmly by Dillon was well dressed in a suit of gray broadcloth with a black-satin-striped silk waistcoat. He held his hat in his hand and Lacie could see his fair hair and pleasant features. He certainly didn’t look cruel or heartless, she thought grudgingly. Then he turned to help someone else down and she tensed in dread. Had even more of Dillon’s confederates come to badger her?

To her complete surprise, however, the slender figure who next alighted was that of her dear friend, Ada. Lacie rushed to the gallery rail to stare down at the small group, perplexed by this unexpected turn of events.

Then Dillon looked up to meet her confused stare. He must have known where she was all along, she realized, and that she would be watching. Although it galled her that he had read her so easily, Lacie nonetheless could not dwell on that. What Ada was doing in the company of this Neal Camden, a slick attorney brought in to wrest Sparrow Hill away from her, was a question she could not answer. Still, she had no intentions of leaving sweet Ada to the merciless manipulations of those two.

When Lacie got downstairs and emerged from the house, the two new arrivals were being escorted by Dillon into the cool shade of the porch. Mrs. Gunter appeared as if on cue with lemonade and biscuits, and the traveling bags were whisked inside. All in all, Lacie thought, a most charming domestic scene on the surface.

But something was afoot, and she was not about to allow anything damaging to happen.

“Hello, dear,” Lacie said, giving Ada an affectionate hug even as she shot Dillon a furious look.

“How good it is to be home!” Ada answered sincerely. “I couldn’t stay away another day. I was so worried about you…” She trailed off and sent an embarrassed glance toward the two men. “I mean—well—”

“Never mind,” Lacie replied warmly. “It’s good to know you were thinking of all of us back here.” Then she hooked her arm in Ada’s. “Let’s go upstairs, shall we? I’m sure there’s lots we have to catch up on.”

Ada started to follow but then she hesitated. “But Lacie, you haven’t met Mr. Camden.”

Lacie stopped in midstride, caught between anger and guilt. More than anything she wanted to ignore this man, yet something in her could not be quite so rude. Still, her expression was hardly welcoming as she turned to face him.

“Hello, Mr. Camden.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Kimbell.” He nodded, giving her an amiable smile.

For a moment she hesitated, forcing a weak smile and chagrined by her ungracious behavior. But then she glanced at Dillon and her smile grew tight and bitter.

“If you’ll excuse me?” Then she firmly pulled her friend inside the house with her. Lacie knew she had shocked Ada. She had shocked herself as well, for never in her entire life had she been so deliberately rude to anyone.

She was justified, she told herself. Her back was to the wall. The wolves were quite literally at the door. Yet she could not completely escape her guilty feelings of remorse.

“Lacie?” Ada’s voice was soft as they went up the stairs together. Yet Lacie could hear the question in it. And the gentle chiding.

“I know, I know. I was rude to him. But you just cannot imagine how bad a predicament we’re in!” She turned to her friend earnestly. “That man—that man is here to challenge the marriage papers. I’m sure of it. He’s a lawyer, and he’s here at Dillon’s request.” She paused to catch her breath. “I just couldn’t greet him as if he were a welcome guest. I don’t want him here at all.”

Ada’s brow creased in concern. “I’m sure Neal—ah, Mr. Camden won’t force his presence on you if you wish him to stay elsewhere.”

“He’ll do Dillon’s bidding.”

“Dillon?”

It was Lacie’s turn to be embarrassed, but she quickly rallied. “It doesn’t matter what he’s called. He’s a devil by any name.”

It wasn’t until they entered her room that Ada replied. “Neal speaks very highly of Mr. Lockwood. Of Dillon.”

Lacie looked at her friend, then sighed and sat disconsolately upon the bed. “They’re no doubt two of a kind. Why wouldn’t he speak highly of him? Besides, he works for him. Dillon pays him to do as he says.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Ada murmured as she removed her dusty traveling bonnet. “But Dillon really has been good to Neal.”

Lacie looked up at the thoughtful tone in Ada’s voice. “You seem to know an awful lot about this man.”

Ada quickly looked down at the bonnet in her hands. “We—ah, well, he was on the train when I boarded in Piano. But I didn’t realize who he was coming to see until we were almost to Shreveport,” she added sincerely. “By then it was too late to begin ignoring him. Besides, I thought I might learn something useful.”

Lacie’s shoulders slumped dejectedly. “Did you?”

“Well, I did find out that Dillon is quite well respected in Denver. He’s a self-made man with all sorts of businesses.”

“Yet he’s still greedy enough to want our school.”

“Yes, well, it appears he does,” Ada said more slowly. “But he has his benevolent side too. Neal told me he is very generous to Denver’s orphanages. And he put Neal through school to be a lawyer. Surely, he can’t be all bad. There must be some way to reason with him.”

“He’s completely unreasonable! There’s only one agreement he’s willing to make—”

Lacie stopped abruptly. She did not wish to recall the one compromise Dillon had offered her.

“An agreement? Oh, tell me! What is it?”

“It wasn’t anything,” Lacie demurred. But she could feel her cheeks heating in a blush, and she knew Ada was bound to become even more curious. “He’s not a very nice man,” she finally said. “He made the most insulting offer.”

“Insulting?” Ada stared at Lacie, struggling to understand. “I suppose he still doesn’t believe you ever married Frederick.”

“It’s far worse than that,” Lacie blurted out, frustrated by the terrible predicament she was in. “He is such a cad, such an ill-bred, low-life—” She stopped to catch her breath, then began to pace the small room. “He offered me money if I would drop my claim to Sparrow Hill. Then he—then he said we could have a special arrangement.” She cast an embarrassed eye at Ada. “He made a completely improper suggestion regarding him—and me.”

Ada’s shocked face and absolute speechlessness only caused Lacie’s face to go even more scarlet. She turned to the window, staring blindly at the sheer linen hangings as she struggled with the confusing emotions that Dillon Lockwood always caused inside her. Despite her justified anger at his insulting proposal, and her humiliation at admitting it to Ada, there was still a part of her that yearned for him.

But that was only her silly, foolish nature, she thought. As long as the strong logical side of her prevailed she could ignore those other unwanted feelings. She took a deep breath.

“So you can see, Ada, he is not a man who may be reasoned with.” With a small forced smile pasted on her lips she turned back to face her friend.

Ada, however, no longer had a stupefied expression on her face. Instead, she was smiling at Lacie with the most hopeful of expressions.

“He is taken with you. He must be!”

“He is only trying to intimidate me!”

“He finds you attractive or else he wouldn’t have—”

“He finds ownership of Sparrow Hill attractive! If he can seduce me”—her face went scarlet again—“then he thinks he can somehow wrest the school from me.”

Ada shook her head. “He’s not married. Neal told me that much. The two of you together would be a very handsome couple. You would make him a very nice wife. Oh yes.”

“Not you too! Don’t you see? It’s not marriage he’s proposing. All he wants is a—a—”

“A paramour?” Ada pronounced carefully. “Yes, well, that may be what he’s saying now.”

Lacie threw her hands up in dismay. “Is everyone here so besotted with him that they cannot see the truth?”

But it was clear Ada had made up her mind. With a sigh of defeat Lacie stared at her friend’s smiling face. “I think I shall take a walk,” she said shortly. “If I stay in this house one more minute, I fear I shall go just as mad as the rest of you!”

They
were
all mad, Lacie vowed as she stalked down the white gravel path that led through the rose garden. Completely crazy. Ada with her foolish romantic notions. Mrs. Gunter with her outrageous suggestion. And Dillon—Dillon with his insulting proposition to which he was smug enough to think she would agree.

But she herself was clearly the craziest one of all, she admitted as she hurried along. Despite all she knew of the man, she could still not stifle the wild urgings that the mere thought of him aroused in her. It was quite insane, yet it was nonetheless true.

Beyond the rose garden the path became narrower. Wild blackberries grew untamed, catching at her skirts as she passed. Black-eyed Susans nodded as she went by. But Lacie was too beset by her dark thoughts to notice. Not until she reached a weathered, somewhat ramshackle gazebo near the edge of the duck pond did she pause to look around her.

The woods were still. The late afternoon heat hung heavy and damp over the earth, seeming almost to press down upon her solitary gloom. A storm was coming, she noted obliquely. Towering thunderheads were approaching from the west. With any luck, a good long rain would cool things down.

As it had yesterday.

Lacie let out a forlorn sigh at the thought of the rainstorm yesterday. Certainly it had saved her from complete humiliation at Dillon Lockwood’s hands. But cool things down? Hardly. His touch and his kiss had aroused her to frightening heights. Even now she shivered at the memory. Would every rainstorm forever remind her of those wonderful, terrifying few minutes?

Lacie slowly made her way toward the old gazebo. She cleared off the leaves and dust from one of the painted benches, then wearily sat down and leaned her head back against the fancifully turned column. As was always the case these days, her mind was filled with thoughts of Dillon: Dillon that first day at the graduation; Dillon in the bathing room that night; the time he’d kissed her in the chicken yard; their ride together…

Angrily, she tried to cast those disturbing thoughts away. She stared up into the rafters of the gazebo, trying to note the repairs needed, and the painting. But thoughts of him still beset her.

He’d raced and won—and chosen her bonnet.

Then he had claimed his winner’s kiss.

She was oblivious to the breeze picking up, and to the gray clouds that moved relentlessly across the sky. She was oblivious to all but her dark and troubling thoughts of Dillon. She wanted him in the way…

Abruptly she bit her lip, wishing she could deny the truth of her feelings. But she simply could not. She wanted him the way a wife wants her husband. It was as plain as that. Even though he was pursuing her only because he thought it would help him take Sparrow Hill from her, she still wanted him.

Lacie covered her face with her hands, wondering abjectly how she had ever come to this. All she had wanted was to preserve the school. She hadn’t wanted to cheat anyone out of anything. Yet here she was: a liar, a thief. And even worse, she was actually contemplating the most unseemly and wanton behavior possible for an unmarried woman!

As if to punctuate her truly wicked thoughts, a huge bolt of lightning split the gloomy sky, followed almost immediately by a sharp crackle of thunder. Lacie jumped in alarm and warily peered beyond the shelter of the gazebo. A brisk wind ruffled the surface of the pond. The branches of the trees swayed in erratic gusts. A splatter of heavy raindrops swept across the surface of the water, then fell like quick, angry drumbeats on the cypress-shake roof above her head.

Now she was in for it, she thought in dismay. She could either stay put and be trapped for who knew how long. Or else she could risk a good soaking and make a run for it.

For a moment longer she debated her choices. Then a blinding flash of lightning decided for her. The hairs on her neck were standing on edge either from the nearness of the lightning or from fear. She didn’t know which, but she didn’t pause to find out. Holding her skirts high, she sprinted up the winding trail, praying with every step that no bolt would strike her when she ran through the trees.

Lacie was huffing from her run by the time the school came into view. The wind whipped around furiously, sending leaves and small branches flying. The rain was sporadic, swirling about and stinging her face and arms. Still, she was almost congratulating herself on reaching the shelter of the school building safely when she froze in alarm.

For a split second she stared in wide-eyed horror, willing it not to be so. It was only a lantern swaying crazily that was casting the eerie glow from the open stable door, she told herself. But even as she watched, the orange glow grew brighter, and she could not deny the terrible truth.