Summer Moon (8 page)

11

Her heart raw and bleeding, Kate had desperately wanted to inflict pain when she bluntly announced to Reed that his father was dead, but his expression never changed. Reed’s eyes registered nothing—not shock, certainly not sorrow.

“He was buried yesterday afternoon,” she added, “not long after you collapsed with fever.”

Disconnected, she was utterly unable to believe that this was the same man who had held her so lovingly, had treated her with the utmost tenderness. The man who had told her that he loved her last night was now insisting that he had no idea who she was. She watched him tiredly rub his eyes as if to clear away the very sight of her.

If what he claimed was true, if he was ignorant of all the letters and the proxy marriage, if the entire long-distance courtship had been his father’s doing, then all the questions that had plagued her could finally be explained.

He had not told her that he was a Texas Ranger, or about Daniel, or his father, or the fact that he did not even live at Benton House anymore because
he had not
written the letters.

But if she believed him, if she believed this was all part of a hoax concocted by Reed Senior, then last night she had consummated a union unsanctioned by law. She was not his wife.

Nor was she a virgin any longer.

Kate wanted to find a dark corner to crawl into, to curl up and hide just as she had done when her mother abandoned her.

She had expected too much. She had reached too high and now, even the dream had vanished. She had been reduced to something little better than her mother.

A few moments ago she had walked through the door to this room hoping to hear him say
I love you
again. She had been wondering how soon they would make love. Instead, he denied knowing her, denied their marriage. She had no reason to disbelieve his protest until suddenly, a faint glimmer of hope began to shine.

Perhaps the fever had somehow destroyed parts of his memory.

Yes, surely that was it. He was still suffering from the shock of his wounds and the power of the fever. Like the dark bruises beneath his eyes, the remnants of fever still clouded his mind. Certainly, the laudanum fogged his thoughts, too. After a good meal and some sound sleep, he would remember her and all his promises. He
would
remember.

Adrift, still frightened to her very soul, she did the only thing she could do. She forced a smile and uncovered the plate of bacon, eggs, fresh biscuits, and gravy that Sofia had prepared.

“Perhaps,” she continued to speak softly, purposely keeping her voice smooth and even, “perhaps after you eat something and get some rest, you’ll remember. After all, you’ve been very, very ill.” She spoke slowly and clearly, as if he were one of her students, hoping to calm herself as well.

She glanced at the slivers of broken china remaining on the floor. “I really need to get a broom.”

“I really need my clothes. And I need to get to the bottom of this. Where in the
hell
is Sofia?”

Kate snapped erect. “There is no need to shout.” What if he became uncontrollable?

Thankfully, at that very moment, the door swung open and Sofia stepped into the room, cool and composed, her jet hair pulled back severely and fashioned in an intricate twist. Her expensive black gown was crisp, freshly pressed; a cameo brooch hugged her collar at her throat. But her composure was marred by her reddened eyes.

“Can you tell me what in the
hell
is going on here?” Reed turned on the housekeeper without so much as a hello.

Although Kate was unused to such explosive displays of temper, Sofia calmly folded her hands at her waist, seemingly unruffled by his outburst.

“If you will get back in bed and cover yourself properly, I will try to explain.” She looked at Kate and added, “To both of you.”

When Reed balked, the woman calmly insisted again that he get back into bed and cover himself.

Amazed when he actually did as the housekeeper asked, Kate turned her back when he began to unwind the sheet. As soon as he was comfortably seated in bed, Sofia crossed the room and helped him smooth out the bedclothes and then pulled the light woven coverlet to his waist.

Kate covered the plate of food. She wasn’t quite sure how she managed it with her hands shaking so hard, but she even refilled his water glass for want of something to do.

Sofia offered her a seat in the rocking chair. When Kate declined, preferring to stand, Sofia sat down heavily, as if burdened by what she had to say.

Reed crossed his arms over his bare chest and pinned the housekeeper with an icy stare. “This woman claims we’re married. And that the old man’s dead.”

“He is.” Sofia nodded. Her eyes, unable to hold her sorrow, shimmered with unshed tears. “Your father was quite ill for the past two years. His heart was failing. He was desperate to have you come home and run Lone Star. Surely you knew that if you received his letters.”

“I threw them out unopened.”

“He came up with a plan to find you a woman, someone who would be a fitting wife. He hoped to use her . . . to entice you back.” Her voice stumbled on the words, but she went on.

“With the help of his lawyer, he placed an advertisement in a few small-town newspapers in the Northeast, the area where his maternal grandmother was born. He received many, many letters in response.”

Kate gasped. Sofia was discussing her as if she were not even there. Reed turned to stare, looked her up and down as if he was buying stock. It had been a deception, all of it. She had been part of a grand, horrific scheme, and worse yet, naive enough to believe she was the only woman to have answered the advertisement.

Sofia continued. “He was so excited. He began to look forward to getting up in the morning again. He could not wait for the mail to be brought in. Your father had not been so excited about life for a long, long time.”

As if exhausted, she rested her head against the back of the rocker. “He asked me to help compose the letters because I would know better than he what was in a woman’s heart, because I could say all the things a woman wants to hear. We worked on them together. I told him what to write.”

All those letters Kate had waited for, the beautiful words and phrases she had memorized. All the hours of planning and dreaming, all the time and effort she took to compose her own letters to him, choosing each and every word as carefully as a mother chooses a child’s name.

This
Reed Benton, the man she thought she married, had never even read them. All of it had been a terrible lie. And she had been a desperate fool.

Sofia stared down at her clenched hands and then finally faced Reed. “I should not have done it. I knew it then, just as I do now, but I could not resist. Finding you a wife gave the señor a reason for living. He was so sad, ever since Daniel was taken and you refused to come home and run the ranch as you should have—”

“Don’t try to put this on me, Sofia. You don’t know the half of it. Do you really think he was about to step aside and turn this place over to me as long as there was a breath in his body?” Reed’s eyes narrowed. “How did the old man think he was going to get me to go along with a marriage I knew nothing about?”

A knife might just as well have pierced Kate’s heart at his words. What little was left of her pitiful hopes and tattered dreams crumbled like dried rose petals. She had reached too high and now the fall was going to break her.

“He asked them all to send pictures.” Sofia began to slowly rock back and forth. “He spent hours going through them, laying them out on the desk like playing cards, studying each and every one carefully. When Katherine’s photograph arrived, he knew that she was the right one the moment he saw her. She reminded him of . . . of your first wife.”

Reed’s expression darkened at the mention of his wife. His brow tightened; his mouth firmed. “Go on.” He demanded that Sofia continue.

Kate had heard enough. She wished it were over.

“He chose Katherine Whittington not only for her looks, but because she was the most intelligent. She was a teacher. And she had no family ties.”

When Sofia’s image suddenly blurred and wavered, Kate turned her back and stared out the open window, seeing nothing. Humiliated, she listened to the sound of her own heartbeat.

No family ties.
No one to protest should Reed Senior’s little plan fall apart.

All those beautiful letters filled with lovely words of promise and hope, the letters that she had built her dream upon had not been a foundation for the future, as she thought, but a well-designed trap. They were not even the words of a man. They had been written by a woman, solely to appeal to another woman’s heart.

She had lived locked away, safe and secure at the orphanage for far too long. She had become too trusting, too naive. Over the years she had wanted something so much that she had cast common sense aside and let herself be caught in the snare of a sick old man bent upon controlling his son’s life.

Reed Junior knew nothing of her past, her hopes, her dreams—and she knew nothing of him except for what Sofia had written. Nothing at all. Who was he? Who was this man she had given herself to last night?

Anger and shame far worse than any she had ever suffered in her life clung to her now. She clenched her fists and spun away from the window to face them both.

“How could you?”
she cried to Sofia. “How did you think you could
ever
deceive us both? Old Mr. Benton was ill, possibly confused. But you, Sofia? How could you do this to anyone? How could you play with someone else’s life? Do you know what you have done?”

“How could I
not
do it, señora?” Sofia suddenly stopped rocking. Her hands lay in her lap, fingers entwined. “If you ever love a man the way I loved the señor, you will do
anything
for him. You will do anything in your power to see him live one more day, even one more hour. To see him draw one more breath. If you have to, you will bargain with the devil to keep him with you for as long as you can.”

With a tortured look, Sofia sank back, let go a deep sigh. “The señor could not wait to meet you. I only wish he had lived a few more hours. That would have been long enough.” The woman buried her face in her hands and coiled in on herself. Her shoulders heaved with silent tears.

Kate was no plaster saint. She was not moved enough to be merciful. “But, Sofia, after I arrived and he was already gone, you kept
on
deceiving me,” she said.

“The moment I saw you, Katherine, I knew you would be good for Reed. I hoped there was still a chance, that somehow the scheme might work. When Reed walked in, when he actually came home, and then when he passed out, I prayed that he might be attracted to you. I hoped you two would get to know one another while you nursed him back to health. I did not think beyond that.”

Reed had been watching Kate so closely that her shame made her turn away again. His stare was so palpable she knew without looking precisely when he turned his attention back to Sofia.

“I’d still like to know how you and the old man thought I would ever go along with this.” He sounded tired, as drained as Kate felt.

She turned to hear what Sofia had to say.

The housekeeper’s cheeks glistened with tears. “Once Kate arrived, I was going to send word to you that he was gravely ill, that you were needed here. By that time, Katherine would have already arrived, and you two would have met.” She shrugged. “We had not planned beyond that. The señor thought that Katherine, since she believed herself already married to you, would have no choice but to go along with his plan and would perhaps be willing to seduce you. I know how ridiculous it all sounds now, but you know your father. To him, nothing was impossible.”

“I know how well he enjoyed playing God,” Reed said.

“When I finally sent for you, it was to see him buried.” Sofia wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, then she smoothed her impeccable hair.

“I never received word of his death.”

“Then why did you come home?” Sofia pushed up out of the chair.

“To bring the boy back.”

The housekeeper drew a handkerchief from beneath the cuff of her sleeve and wiped her nose. “Ah, yes. Daniel.”

Reed looked down at his hands. “Yes.”

His cool, shuttered expression struck a chord in Kate, one that made her cringe. There was no love for the boy in his eyes, no tenderness at all in his expression, merely confusion.

Kate stepped forward. “Did you hurt him?”

“What are you talking about?”

“That child. Did you hurt him? He can’t walk. His ankle is swollen. He’s covered with cuts and bruises. You saw fit to tie him up like a dog outside the house, and you haven’t even bothered to ask about him yet.
Did you
hurt him?”

“Who are
you
to ask me if I hurt him?” He turned away again, refusing to meet her eyes. “I didn’t touch him. Besides, he’s no concern of yours, anyway.”

“As a caring adult,
any
child’s welfare is my concern, Mr. Benton.”

“I don’t need a sermon from any sanctimonious spinster so desperate for a man that she agreed to marry one sight unseen.” He rubbed his chin, assessed her as if weighing her worth. “I’ll pay for a ticket to wherever it was you came from so you can go back.”

“I can’t go back.”

His easy dismissal fired her anger while the raw reality of her situation staggered her. There was no way she could undo what had been done last night. No way she could recover what she had lost in this room.

She was back where she had started, except that no decent man would want her now. “I can’t go back,” she repeated, summoning strength from an unknown reserve. She looked Reed straight in the eye. “The marriage has been recorded. Legally, I am your wife.”

Reed sounded just as furious. “I haven’t seen my father in five years. I sure as hell never signed any legal documents, marriage or otherwise.” Reed looked to Sofia for yet another answer. “Who signed that proxy?”