Wilda's Outlaw (6 page)

“That is enough,” he roared.

She bit her tongue, not from fear but to keep it still. She had gone much too far, for certain. Time to stop. Now. She was to be his wife. He had said so. All the same, she could not apologize, though he waited as if expecting it. She would do so when he did.

Marguerite tried to do it for her, but he shushed her before she could say more than, “Please forgive the child, she is worn from the trip.”

“Tomorrow, right after breakfast,” he told her, not so much as glancing at Wilda again. “And see she is attired in a more proper manner.”

Wilda stiffened, opened her mouth. To prevent another breach of etiquette, Marguerite turned her forcibly and marched her back to the table as if she were Tyra. Furious, Wilda stood behind her chair glaring at the door the horrible man had slammed when he left the room.

****

Rowena’s Diary

Tuesday, June 1, 1875

Fairhaven

Saints preserve us, as our dear mother used to say. This evening Lord Blair Prescott treated my sister in such an abominable way I nearly burst into tears. How can he have been so unfeeling toward the woman he soon will marry? Perhaps I have misjudged the man, for I believed that beneath that dreadful countenance beat a wounded heart that only needed love and understanding. And he scarcely spoke to the rest of us. As if we did not exist. I fear that Wilda will not wish to allow this wedding to take place.

What a dreadful happenstance to contemplate, that of being cast out in a country we do not know. Three women alone, with no thought as to where we might go, or how to survive. Surely my sister will not allow that to happen.

Yet, I am so sad, realizing she agreed to marry Lord Prescott for our sakes. So we could be free of St. Ann’s and have a better life here in America. If only he had asked me, I know I could have become a good wife, even to a man as angry as he. Wilda is much too impatient and speaks without thinking. It may well be her downfall.

I will counsel her to be tolerant of him, else she will remain miserable the whole of her life. At all cost, she must learn to hold that tongue of hers. She has always possessed the rebellion of our mother. For two Catholic girls to have left their home in Ireland to marry brothers of the Protestant faith against their parents' wishes must have taken a great deal of courage. Wilda has that kind of courage, but I fear it will steer her away from this marriage and into trouble.

I am ashamed to admit that a selfish concern for myself and Tyra causes me to pray she does nothing so drastic.

If Lord Prescott were to cast us out, where would we go? I shudder to think of it, and can only hope and pray that should he be dissatisfied with Wilda, he will settle for me as a fit wife.

Chapter Four

Along about dark, Calder saddled up his freckle-faced bay, and headed for the Johnson farmstead a few miles outside of Hays City. Though he kept a cautious eye out for the Ellis County sheriff and any of his men, he saw no one, and rode into the yard without incident.

At the kitchen window a candle flickered. Rachel probably couldn’t afford coal oil for the lamps. Nudged by pity for the woman and her children, he vowed to be careful not to let his physical needs overpower his better sense. Baron had been right about her being attractive. Often, when he and the boys had carried out a good stick-up he’d brought them food. She was a pretty little thing and needy, her kids cute as a pen full of puppies. Next thing he knew he’d be adopting them all, and lately he did well to feed and clothe himself.

He helloed the house so as not to scare her, then dismounted. “It’s me, Miz Johnson. Calder Raines. You in there?”

The door inched open as he stepped beneath the sloping porch roof. Stair-step faces peered out through the crack, hers at the very top. There’d be a ten gauge propped behind the door within easy reach, and he sure didn’t want to get a bunch of holes blowed in him.

“Mr. Raines. I didn’t recognize you.” Her voice was sweet as prairie flowers.

He took off his hat, shifted from one foot to the other and self-consciously ran fingers through his fresh cut hair. “Yeah. About time I cleaned up. Wish I could say I brought you and the younguns something, but I didn’t. This time I come for help myself.”

“You come right on in, then.” She stood away and let the door swing wide.

He entered. The shotgun was propped just where he’d thought it would be. In easy reach should she need it. The three youngsters clung to their mother’s skirt, peeking out at him, their wide, hopeful eyes tugging at his heart. A candle burned in the center of a handmade table, the glow from its flame scarcely reaching into the shadowy corners of the soddy.

She wiped small hands over her threadbare apron and flushed. “Why, look at you, Calder Raines. You’ve cut your hair and shaved off your whiskers. I wouldn’t have known you on the street. Makes you look younger.” She turned a deeper shade of red and clamped her lips tightly, as if she’d said too much.

He bobbed his head. “Thank you, ma’am. Yes, I did cut my hair. Thinking of going into that new settlement, the one they’re calling Victoria City, and getting myself a job.”

“That seems like a good idea.” She waited.

One of the kids tugged at her skirt. “Mama, Mama.”

“Hush, now. We’ve got company.”

“Mama, did he bring us candy?”

“Hush up, right now and mind your manners.”

Calder wished he had a pocketful of sweets, felt guilty that he didn’t. Now that he actually stood before the widow, he didn’t know how to broach the subject of her dead husband’s clothes.

“How can I help you with that, Mr. Raines?”

“Well, you see, I…it’s this way. I…Baron thought…maybe…” He gazed down at the toes of his worn boots. His tongue felt like it was tangled around every tooth in his head. How did a fella ask a woman if he could borrow her dead husband’s clothes? Oh, hell, maybe she’d buried him in the only decent things he had. What was he doing here, anyway?

“Baron thought?” she prodded.

“He said I’d do better getting a job if I had some good clothes to wear and we…I mean, he…”

“Of course, you are about my Jim’s size. There’s no use in wasting what little he had. Let’s look and see.”

At last she understood, and he didn’t have to go on. He let out a sigh of relief. She took up a candle stub, lit it off the one on the table and disappeared through a curtained door he took to be the bedroom, the only other room in the small sod house.

While their mother was gone, the three kids surrounded him, faces turned up to stare. He fidgeted with his hat, fixed his gaze on the flickering candle flame, scuffled his feet some more.

He’d rather be shot at by damn Yankees than this.

Despite his manner, they didn’t a one of those young’uns go away, just kept looking up at him. Making him nervous as a steer around a branding fire. He wished he had something for them. This was the reason he’d always left their goods and lit out. You hang around young’uns very long, you’re a goner. So he never really got to know them. But now he had no choice, they had him penned up good.

They’d all been washed and readied for bed, he could smell the lye soap and tender skin. Damp tendrils of their identical blonde tresses clung to their necks. The little one, barely walking good, wore a long-tailed dress and had a finger in her mouth. Her hair formed a golden halo above eyes so blue they were almost black. Ashamed he’d never learned their names, he squatted in front of her.

“What’s your name, little one?”

“He’s John Mark,” the bigger girl said. “I’m Mary Louise and this is Elizabeth Ann.”

“He’s pretty as a girl,” Calder said.

“That’s what daddy always said,” Mary Louise answered.

A knot blocked Calder’s throat, and he wanted to gather all three of them in his arms and hug their hurt away. They would never feel their father’s embrace again, never see his love for them shining from his face. Poor little waifs.

Rachel—he called her Miz Johnson but always thought of her as Rachel—came out of the bedroom and saved him from thoroughly embarrassing himself. He rose quickly, cleared his throat and dabbed his eyes on a shirt sleeve.

A pair of neatly patched black trousers and a boiled white shirt hung over her arm.

“This is the best I could do. We…they buried Jim in his onliest good jacket and pants. These have been mended, but I think they’ll do. At least they look better than what you’re wearing.”

Calder fingered a ragged hole in one leg of his paper-thin denims.

She held out the clothes, but he couldn’t take them. All he could think of, looking down into her drawn features, was his own mother the day she learned about Rafe’s death in the war, and how she’d gone all wild, tearing his brothers’ clothes from the closet and throwing them on the floor. Screaming and crying herself into exhaustion. Coming so soon on the heels of Land’s passing, was just more than she could abide.

Damn, what was wrong with him lately? Drifting into the past like that. No use to it at all. Living today asked for enough, without going backward to relive such sorrows.

Rachel regarded him with a tilt of her head. “Well, aren’t you going to take them? I know they’re not much, but it’s all I can offer.”

“Oh, no, ma’am, it’s not that at all. I’m beholden to you and they’re just fine. I was thinking of something else, that’s all. I’m sure they’ll do the trick.”

“Aren’t you going to try them on?”

He glanced about, at the children still staring at him, at the delicate woman blushing before him. “Here? Now?”

“Take the candle, go in there.” She gestured toward the bedroom.

“Oh, I couldn’t. I mean…” After what Baron had said, the thought of taking off all his clothes in the same house with this woman left him skittish as a diamondback rattler in a stampede.

“Well, for goodness sake.” Taking the shirt she measured it across his back, pulled a sleeve down his arm. Her touch awoke in him a desire for the caring touch of a woman's hand. Something killed long ago. Drat it all, anyway.

He snatched the shirt from her, ignored the look of hurt surprise in her eyes. “They’re okay, I’m sure they’ll fit. I thank you, ma’am. Thank you. Sorry. Sorry,” he muttered as he backed out the door. He wouldn’t soon forget her standing there, one hand covering her mouth, the other spread over her breast, her three young’uns at her side, faces crumpling into frightened little masks.

“Goddammit to hell,” he said over and over. Spurring Gabe into a fast gallop, he rode off into a night as black as his very soul.

****

Herded by a prim lipped Marguerite through the unfamiliar house to the library where Prescott awaited, Wilda prepared herself for the worst. Clearly, she had broken the bounds of acceptable behavior toward the Lord of Fairhaven. He had the upper hand, and no matter how he behaved, she should not have returned the treatment in kind. Surely, though, he was too civilized to actually punish her. A tongue-lashing she could stand up to, but she would not bend under his verbal sword, no matter how sharp its steel.

All she could manage was to keep her mouth shut and act humble. Even as a child her mother had warned that her temper would get her in trouble someday. And she could not have been more correct, though in her wildest dreams her mother could not have imagined this predicament. Wilda wished herself back at St. Ann’s, down on her knees scrubbing the cobblestones. Anything would be better than facing Prescott’s fury. It had always been fight back or cry, and her eyes and throat burned at the idea of allowing him to berate her. She swallowed hard and marched behind Marguerite to the dark stained door where the woman rapped smartly on its decorative panels.

“Come,” Prescott said.

He truly barked the word. Wilda drew herself ramrod straight and stepped past Marguerite, whose countenance bore a warning she had no trouble reading.

The haughty lord of the manor sat in a tremendous leather chair behind a desk the size of her cell at St. Ann’s. Floor to ceiling shelves filled with books covered every wall save one. Heavy gold draperies were drawn away from immense windows that framed the endless prairie. Clouds sailed across a vivid blue sky, not yet branded by the sun. She longed to run from this frightful place, race through the grass and bury her nose in an armful of golden sunflowers. Forget her vow and its consequences. Forget too what might happen if she did not keep her promise to wed this frightful man.

“You may leave,” Prescott said, jerking her attention away from the tempting daydream.

She glanced around, hoping it was her to whom he spoke, but Marguerite cast her another warning glower, slipped out the door and closed it with an ominous snap of the latch.

Alone with the man, she remained stiffly at attention, arms straight at her sides, chin stubbornly jutted in his direction, eyes aimed over his left shoulder. Perhaps if she didn’t meet that smoldering gaze she could manage to stand up under whatever he had in mind without lashing out at him.

For long minutes the only sound in the room was the click of the ponderous pendulum on the huge grandfather clock against the far wall.

Then he rose, moved around the desk and examined her closely enough that she caught a whiff of a woodsy scent from his freshly shaved cheeks. It smothered another fragrance with which she was only slightly familiar. Whiskey.

Though she had taken great care in dressing, to a touch of rose water on each wrist, he would no doubt find something wrong. His slow examination prodded at her patience. How could he be such a bore? Surely he would approve of the chic London-smoke toilette. It’s figured camel’s hair over-skirt draped silk skirt of the same shade, trimmed with silk pleating looped to the right side. At the back a faille bow held three draperies edged with woolen grelot fringe. The dress was so heavy braces were required under the bodice to hold it up. Marguerite had done her hair in one of the newest styles, coiled high on her head in great masses of curls that escaped in a controlled flow down the center of her back.

Prescott circled her once, arms locked behind him, then gestured for her hand. Reluctantly, she gave it to him and he kissed it lightly with warm lips.