When the Splendor Falls (98 page)

Neil glanced at the blown-off piece of wood still held in Stanfield’s hand and glanced back at his father, then at Leigh, wondering why they had come to save him.

“Please accept my deepest apologies, Mr. Stanfield,” Leigh said stiffly, walking back to her horse, and climbing into the saddle before anyone could assist her.

“No offense taken, Mrs. Braedon. Although I suspect I had better have a word with your brother, Guy, for I owe him an apology, as well as the rest of you for being here under false pretenses,” Stanfield said smoothly.

Leigh caught Neil’s eye for just an instant, then glanced away, pulling on the reins as she rode back up the bank.

“She must love you very much,” Stanfield said. “Not many women would have the courage to do what she was going to do. You’ve quite a woman for a wife,” he said almost wistfully, staring after Leigh’s figure in admiration.

“Yes, I know,” Neil said softly, an expression of revelation crossing his hard face as he realized what she had been prepared to do; the rifle he’d taken away from her had been loaded and cocked, ready to fire, ready to kill. No one, until Leigh, had ever loved him above everyone else. No one.

“Looks like you could use some help with this log,” Nathaniel said, dismounting, and coming to stand beside Neil. “I’ll give you a hand. And I’d be interested in hearing more about Alfonso Jacobs.”

* * *

An hour later, Leigh still couldn’t believe it as she paced back and forth in her room. She would have shot Michael Stanfield dead. And he would have been an innocent man. If Nathaniel hadn’t shot first, and carefully, sanely aimed his shot at the ax instead of Michael Stanfield’s head, she would now be a murderess. What madness did love bring to a person, she wondered in despair, shocked by the savageness she’d felt when she thought Neil was in danger. She clenched her hands together, playing with her wedding band, the gold so pure. She pulled it from her finger, staring down at it. It was the first time she’d taken it from her finger since Neil had given it to her, and her finger felt bare without it encircling her flesh. Neil. She would have killed to save him. Leigh frowned, narrowing her eyes as she stared at the inside of the band. She was surprised to see an inscription. Neil had never told her.

“
For my beloved Leigh
.” She read the words softly aloud, words that proclaimed his love.

“I meant every word.” Neil spoke from the doorway. “I’ve always loved you.”

Leigh turned around, the ring sliding back onto her finger, where it belonged. He stood so tall and powerful—and proud—before her. He flouted convention with his buckskins and golden Comanche braid, but there was a vulnerability about him that even his unyielding strength could not hide, and Leigh suddenly wanted to reach out and touch his bronzed cheek, see the hard curve of mouth soften beneath her fingertips, her lips…to see him smile down at her…to hear his laughter again. They faced each other for a long moment staring, a thousand words and declarations of love passing silently between them, but actions had proven their love for one another, and he held out his arms to her, and Leigh didn’t hesitate, the proof of his love around her finger. She ran to him, feeling his arms enfolding her.

Their lips met and there was silence. Then Leigh felt herself lifted and carried to the bed. He sat down, cradling her against his chest, his lips tasting again of hers.

“I never dreamed until today that you loved me, or that you would have killed for me. To risk your life for mine. To want to save me. Do you know how much I love you? From the moment I saw you I wanted you. I loved your spirit, your loving laughter, your dignity, your beauty. And I wanted to possess you. I wanted you to be mine. I was tormented when I left Travers Hill, leaving you to another man. Knowing you hated me because I’d hurt you. Not only did I take something you loved from you, but I’d hoped you would never forget me, even if it was with hatred in your heart.”

“Never that. I never hated you. Even when my pride told me I should, my heart spoke another word. Can you forgive me for not choosing you that summer?” she asked him, her hands caressing his face, touching his lips, his cheek, the strong column of his throat.

“I loved you all the more because you didn’t, because you placed the needs of those you loved above your own desires. I think I was jealous of your family. You belonged to them. And you loved and cared for them. I was just an outsider. I knew you were physically attracted to me, and I set out to seduce you, and I would have seduced you, taking you from Wycliffe, but what I hadn’t counted on was the deep, sacrificing love you had for your family, and that you’d marry the man because of them. I knew then I’d lost you. I couldn’t fight that kind of love. A love I couldn’t understand, yet wanted so badly. And I wanted to hurt you. Can you forgive me for that?”

Leigh pressed her lips to his mouth, healing the wound with her touch, warming to his.

“Everyone was telling me how important the right marriage must be, and that I must select the right man. I mustn’t mistake infatuation for love. Or if there was no love, then how important friendship would be in my marriage, and that was why I must choose the right man, a man I had common likes and dislikes with, and who would be acceptable to my friends and family. Someone appropriate. And until I met you, a stranger who was everything a gentleman wasn’t, I had thought Matthew Wycliffe would make the perfect husband for me. I didn’t know what love was until I met you. And then, I was frightened to admit it, because I’d been listening to what everyone had been telling me. I listened to everyone but myself, what my heart was trying to tell me. You are the only man I have ever loved, could ever love with all my heart. But by then I’d learned that Travers Hill was mortgaged, and that my father was hopelessly in debt, and I couldn’t turn my back on them, especially when I didn’t truly know what your intentions were,” Leigh said softly.

“Or trust me.”

“And then you dueled with Guy and…”

But his mouth stopped the rest of her words, not allowing her to mention their parting.

“And then we had to marry under less than auspicious circumstances,” he said, his breath hot against her cheek. “But I would do it again.”

“Adam told me you refused at first,” Leigh murmured, still remembering the hurt of that rejection, but Neil lifted her face to his, staring down into her eyes, no shadows between them now.

“I refused only because I wanted to come to you and win your love freely. I didn’t want there to be misunderstandings between us. I wanted you to want to marry me because you loved me, not because you were sacrificing yourself to save your family. I wanted to have your love when I gave you my name. But I had no alternative, and I wasn’t going to risk losing you forever. I took the chance, because I knew you would not have married me otherwise. You did not come willingly into this marriage,” he reminded her.

Leigh glanced down at their clasped hands. “No, I did not, because I thought you were being trapped into marrying me. Adam’s needs, and your men’s, came before ours. I knew you desired me, but it wasn’t enough,” Leigh admitted, her cheeks flushed.

“Then why did you let me love you that night?” Neil asked quietly, still disbelieving of her declaration of love, for he had always wondered why she had lain with him and responded to him, hoping that it had been more than desire, more than wifely duty that had driven her into his arms that night—and last night.

Leigh looked up, meeting his searching gaze unblinkingly. “Because whatever your feelings were for me, I loved you, and I could not bear the thought that you would leave me and I might never see you again, and I would never have known your love because of some foolish, misplaced pride. If I’d lost you, then I wanted to at least have something more than a memory of you. I prayed that you had gotten me with child that night. At least I would have your son or daughter to love and cherish. But it wasn’t to be,” Leigh told him, unprepared for the fierceness of his response, little realizing how deeply she had touched him with her low-voiced confession as she bared her soul to him. His mouth found hers, his kiss searing, almost savage in intensity as he held her as if he’d never let her go, stealing the breath from her until they breathed as one.

“I do love you, Neil.” He was her love. Neil Darcy Braedon. Sun Dagger. Captain Dagger, leader of the Bloodriders. He was all of those men and more. And now, with her love, he would become another man. He was her beloved husband.

“Leigh,” he murmured, kissing her deeply, holding her tightly against him. He glanced away, staring through the window at the mountains, feeling a sense of power akin to the mountain gods’, knowing at last that she was his. But Leigh knew there was still a part of Neil she did not know, that he had not shared with her, perhaps because he could not, because it was not his secret to share.

Leigh took her courage in her hands, determined there would be no more ghosts to haunt their lives. Before he could protest, she had pulled free of his arms, going over to her desk, where the bottom drawer still stood partly open. She opened it wider. Her hand hesitated a moment, resting indecisively over the rolled-up sheet of vellum.

“What’s this?” Neil asked curiously when she handed it to him.

“It’s the portrait of a man. A man I met. I couldn’t forget his face, it haunted me, so I asked Solange to draw the face I described to her,” Leigh told him, watching him as he unrolled the paper.

He was so silent, Leigh felt frightened, wondering what she had done. Why couldn’t she have left well enough alone? Had she destroyed what had just happened between them? she thought in growing despair, afraid to move.

Neil looked up at her, a strange look on his face.

Leigh swallowed. “That night when Gil and I returned to Royal Rivers, the night you came home from the war, we had been riding to Riovado. That was why we were late.”

“Riovado?” Neil asked sharply.

Leigh nodded. “Yes, but we decided to turn back halfway there, just beyond a stream crossing a wide meadow. In the copse of trees we found the lamb, and were trying to catch it. That much of the story we told you that night was true. What we didn’t tell you was that we—” Leigh paused, her hand going to her breast nervously, almost protectively. “We were attacked by a group of Comanche braves.”

Neil stood up, taking a step toward her, glancing from the drawing to her tormented face. “My God, Leigh,” he said, knowing even more than she ever could the danger she’d been in, the life she would have faced had she been taken captive, and he felt his heart stop as he stared at her beloved face, his dearest Leigh.

“Gil tried to fight and was hurt.
That
brave was about to rape me when he saw this,” Leigh said, gently lifting the leather pouch, which she still wore, over her head and holding it out to Neil. “He jerked it from around my neck and that was how I received the abrasion you saw that night. But when the Comanche brave looked at it more closely, he seemed puzzled. He must have recognized the markings on it, and wondering why I had possession of something sacred belonging to the Comanche, he opened it,” she said, doing the same now. “He was startled, Neil, when he stared down at the contents. He touched the tiny black braid, saying something softly, then he looked up at me as if sorry for what he had done. I could see it in his eyes, in his light blue eyes. He very carefully put the contents back in the pouch, but he seemed most fascinated by the silver dagger with the sun on the hilt. He held it for a long moment in the palm of his hand, as if he had heard the stories of a young golden-haired Comanche brave called Sun Dagger, and his mother’s young brother, who had been lost to the tribe. Sacrificed, perhaps, so the others could live in peace. But never forgotten, Neil. Never forgotten, because of this pouch, he let Gil and me live. They rode off and left us.”

Neil felt as if the breath had been knocked out of him. His secret, kept for so long, now spoken of by Leigh. How? he wondered, stunned. He stared at the beautifully sketched face. He could see Shannon in every line, in the incredible shade of blue of the eyes.

“The face of this Comanche brave seemed so familiar to me,” Leigh said, twisting her hands nervously as she saw the expression on Neil’s face. “I went to your father’s study and compared the sketch to the portrait of your mother and sister. The faces were too similar not to be related.”

“You’ve told no one?” he asked quietly.

“No, it was not my secret to tell. I suspected the truth after seeing the resemblance between the three faces, and then, something the Misses Simone and Clarice said made me realize that sometimes a person might want others to think they had died, when actually they had not. And I found myself wondering about Shannon, a young girl becoming a woman while she lived with the Comanche. What if she had a choice to make? Would she have come home?” Leigh asked gently.

Neil stared into her face, trusting her. “Shannon didn’t die. I lied,” he said in a low voice, his expression tortured. “She chose to remain with the Comanche. Shannon was four years older than I was, and as you’ve said, she became a woman during our captivity with the Comanche. And she fell in love. Her Comanche name was She-With-Eyes-Of-The-Captured-Sky. She was very beautiful and a brave warrior of the tribe fell in love with her and claimed her for his wife. He was a good man and he worshipped her. When I was sent from the tribe she had given birth to a daughter and was with child again. She swore me to silence. She knew our father would never give up looking for her and would take her from the tribe, from her family. She also knew it would kill him to learn about her. She said it would be better if he thought she was dead. She was always so wise. She and her family, and the tribe, and our father could all live in peace if I said she was dead. I promised her, but I was young and I hated her and the rest of them for sacrificing me, turning me away from the only family I had known, where I had felt loved. I was alone again. I felt betrayed by her and the tribe. She now belonged to Hungry-As-The-Stalking-Wolf and her daughter, not to me. I’ve always regretted the things I said to her. I’ve wanted to tell her I was sorry, that I understood, to ask her forgiveness. I never saw her again. But now, finally, I know she forgave me, that she loved me. You’ve given me that by showing me this, and telling me about that young Comanche buck.