by Craig, Emma
She knew she was only putting off the inevitable, but that was all right. A few more weeks of bliss might make up for the rest of her lifetime spent alone and unloved.
Except, of course, for her beloved Rosamunda. Tacita peered into the saddlebag she’d prepared for her darling before they’d begun their long journey, and smiled. Rosamunda looked up at her with such confidence. It made Tacita’s heart sing to know Rosamunda trusted her so implicitly.
She and Jed made love often as they covered the long miles to Denver. At first, he’d seemed reluctant and Tacita believed he didn’t want to bed her again. She’d even gone so far as to ask him, risking rejection. If he told her he never wanted to touch her again, she’d be humiliated, but at least her belief in herself as unworthy would be verified once and for all. She’d never harbor idle hopes again.
“Not want to?”
He’d sounded as astonished as he looked. Taking note of his eyebrows, arched like twin horseshoes over his gorgeous brown eyes, Tacita took heart. Unwilling to succumb to mistaken assumptions, she nodded, reserving her opinion.
“Yes. I shall understand if you don’t want to—to make love again.” She’d used the term guardedly, since what they’d done the prior night undoubtedly bore no resemblance to love in Jed’s mind. She couldn’t think of another term for it, though, being a proper young woman and unversed in the vocabulary of sexual congress.
“Not want to?” he said again.
And again she nodded. “Yes. It’s all right, Jed. I certainly don’t wish to force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Not want to,” he said yet a third time.
This time, Tacita’s patience frayed. After all, it had taken all of her courage to ask him the first time. “Yes!” she snapped. “For heaven’s sake, stop looking at me like that!”
Jed’s mouth closed with a clink of teeth, although his eyebrows remained arched into their expression of astonishment. Tacita wondered if he considered her question so outrageous, so utterly revolting, that he could find no words with which to express his repugnance. The idea made heat spread across the back of her neck and creep into her cheeks. She turned away, unable to watch him any longer.
“I—I’m sorry, Tacita.” His voice was very soft and unusually full of feeling.
She sniffed.
“I—I’d like nothing better than to make love to you again, ma’am. Tacita. I—I didn’t think you’d want to.”
She turned around again. “Really?”
Apparently finding words difficult, Jed took refuge in a nod.
“You mean it?”
He nodded once more.
Her smile broke free of her trepidation. “Oh, I’m so awfully glad!”
Rosamunda snarled once and then desisted, turning her back on them and hunkering down on her bed. She didn’t even acknowledge Tacita’s fond good-night.
Jed made her feel even better that night. If asked before it happened, Tacita would have declared such a thing to be impossible.
It was incredible how gentle those big hands of his could be, though. They brought every single inch of her body to life. Tacita realized, in fact, that she’d barely been alive until Jed stroked her into awareness. It was as if her body had been slumbering until he awakened it.
After she reached her shuddering climax and welcomed Jed into her body with open arms and a loving heart, she admitted to herself, silently, that it would be difficult to continue life Jedless. He had come to mean so much to her in such a short period of time, the thought of resuming her life with only Rosamunda to love filled her with sadness.
Even before she’d cajoled him into making love with her, she’d loved him. Now she considered the moment of their parting with dread. Renewing her vow not to think about it, she revived her pretense and welcomed it with pleasure. Until they got to San Francisco, Jed Hardcastle loved her, and that was that.
She went to sleep that night with Jed in her arms and a body tingling with newly discovered pleasures.
# # #
Luther Adams Williamson, Avinash Agrawal, Farley Boskins and Virendra Karnik sat in the largest of the suite of rooms Agrawal had hired at the fanciest hotel in Santa Fe. Agrawal’s ever-present henchmen stood guard at the door, their faces impassive, their white costumes and turbans concealing deadly weapons and giving Luther the impression of evil angels. The henchmen were unnecessary. He decided not to tell Agrawal so, but the truth was, Luther possessed neither the moral backbone nor the boldness to attempt an escape. At the moment, moreover, he wasn’t sure he could even stand.
Agrawal stroked his upper lip and gazed dispassionately at Luther, as though he were studying a fairly dull passage in a boring book. Luther tried to keep him in focus, but wasn’t altogether successful. He sipped steadily on his beer as the only way to keep panic from consuming him.
Farley Boskins and Virendra Karnik sat nearby, discussing politics. Luther’s fuddled mind couldn’t follow their conversation. It was having enough trouble concentrating on Agrawal. Besides, every time a snippet of their discussion penetrated Luther’s alcohol-soaked brain, words like “tyranny” and “Kali” and “plumbing” struck him as extremely odd. When he tried, Luther didn’t have the wit to sort them out, so he quit trying.
Every now and then a flicker of hope would remind him that all wasn’t lost yet. The flicker was becoming dimmer as the days passed and the Eye remained with Tacita. Maybe whoever Agrawal had hired to hold up the stage from Denver would be successful, but Luther had been foiled too neatly too often lately to hope very hard.
“So you believe Miss Grantham will take up residence at the Palace when she arrives in San Francisco, Mr. Williamson?”
Agrawal’s suave voice oiled its way through the beery puddles in Luther’s head and settled slowly into comprehensible language. He nodded once then stopped when his head swam.
“Yesh,” he said and frowned. That didn’t sound right, so he tried again. “Yes.” There. That was better. Making a gigantic effort he added, “She always stays at the best hotels.” She might as well, he added silently; after all, she had all the money in the world.
“Then I believe we should remove ourselves to San Francisco with dispatch.”
Luther stared hard at Agrawal’s lips, hoping to use what was left of his senses to decipher meaning in the Indian’s clipped words. After a moment or two, he succeeded.
“Yesh. Yesh, that’s prolly besht.”
Agrawal frowned. “Perhaps it would be better if you were not to drink so much, my friend.”
Luther’s heart stumbled over a beat, not being quick enough by this time to skip. “No,” he said, and shook his head even though the motion made unpleasant waves crash through it. “No. Need it. Doctor’s orders.”
Agrawal’s left eyebrow lifted. “Truly?”
After attempting a nod, Luther hunched over and hugged his beer mug to his chest. It was all he had left.
“Ah, well, then, I shan’t chide you. I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
That’s exactly what Luther was afraid of.
# # #
Tacita was a little surprised to discover how bustling a metropolis Denver was. She’d expected a rowdy, dusty, rutted boom town with little beauty and few amenities. What she found was that Denver was indeed rowdy, quite dusty and entirely too rutted. The boom, however, had settled into a rather more steady rumble of commerce in precious ores, with long-established businesses rumbling right alongside it in supporting positions. And it was lovely, too, in spots.
The opera house, in fact, was beautiful, and it wasn’t the only nice-looking building to catch her eye. She gazed with rapt interest at the swarms of citizens thronging the streets. Why, the place looked quite urbane.
“My goodness, it’s such a big city.”
“Yup. It’s big all right.” Jed didn’t sound pleased.
“You don’t like it?”
Jed was leading the mules and baggage wagon through the crowded streets, hunched over his saddle,
staring straight ahead. Tacita rode her little mare next to him. He wore a scowl on his face, but his expression softened when he turned to look at her.
“I’m not real fond of big cities, Tacita.”
“Oh.” Tacita considered his words as she looked around. This seemed to be an exciting place, but she guessed she could understand Jed’s distaste. Denver did not appear to be a very peaceful town. If all she’d read about it was true, it wasn’t nearly as peaceful as Galveston, which had been civilized for fifty years or more before Denver had begun to sprout up around the mines, and Galveston wasn’t especially peaceful.
“You prefer the quiet of a small town?”
He looked at her for a long time before he said, “Reckon that’s it.”
“I see.” Tilting her head as she mulled the matter over, she said, “I’ve never lived in a small town myself.”
“Figured as much.”
Now he sounded morose. Tacita could think of nothing to account for his tone. Before she could take exception or ask him about it, he interrupted her thoughts.
“You ever think about trying to live in a small town, ma’am?”
“Why, I’ve never considered it before.”
“Didn’t think so.” His shoulders slumped a little more.
“It must be pleasant to know all your neighbors, though.”
“It’s pretty fair.”
“I imagine it’s especially agreeable if you have relatives there,” she offered, considering how satisfying it would be to be surrounded by a large, affectionate family like Jed’s. One would certainly never be lonely, even if one were relatively boring by nature.
“Even if you don’t,” he said, and she had to scramble to remember what she’d said that he was responding to. When she did, she was stricken by how logical his assertion was.
“Of course. I do believe you’re right. Why, if one has no family, one would still know everyone in a small town and, therefore, have friends and companions. I know that in Galveston, most of the people I had communication with were connected to my parents’ business enterprises in one way or another. Since my school days were spent in a boarding school in New York, I didn’t have very many friends in Galveston. It’s surprising how anonymous a large city can be.”
“Wouldn’t know.”
Tacita’s heart trilled a beat at his terse response. He was so rugged. So matter-of-fact. So to-the-point. So—so Western, somehow. He didn’t waste breath in idle chit-chat, nor did he wander from the point.
“Well it is, I can tell you that,” she said.
He grunted.
When they were on the trail, Jed was able to fool himself into thinking that maybe, if he tried really, really hard, he could win Tacita Grantham’s love. As they traveled farther into the lively city of Denver, the disparity between their backgrounds thrust itself into his mind like a headache. There was no way on earth she’d ever give up her big-city connections and go for a small-town hick like him.
No. She was a city woman and she needed a city fellow. Somebody with polish and sophistication; somebody who knew which fork to use when and didn’t have to think before he used good grammar. Somebody who could carry on conversations about nothing with people he’d never met before. Jed guessed grudgingly that even a pansy Englishman would probably have more in common with Tacita Grantham than he did.
He remained grim as he purchased tickets on the next stage to San Francisco and hired a carrier to transport the bulk of Tacita’s belongings, since they wouldn’t fit on the stage.
Of course, he wasn’t that much of a hick. After all, he did have a university degree. Granted, it wasn’t from Yale or Harvard or one of those fancy Eastern universities. Still, it was a degree and he reckoned he could use it somewhere besides Busted Flush. Maybe she’d want him if he agreed to give up his life in Busted Flush and move to Galveston.
The notion no sooner appeared than Jed began to experience a queasy feeling deep down in his guts, and he knew he was only kidding himself. Spending long enough at Texas U. to get a degree had almost killed him, because of all the people there. Even for the sake of securing Tacita, he wasn’t sure he could survive indefinitely in the a city the size of Galveston. If the crowds didn’t drive him berserk, the weather would. Jed was used to the dry, open plains around Busted Flush. Humidity and hurricanes were a couple of things he’d just as soon avoid if he could.
No. It didn’t seem likely that he’d have Tacita Grantham on a permanent basis. He’d just have to make do with the time they had together, and pray he’d get over her in time to make a decent, if lukewarm, husband for Miss Amalie Crunch.
Not having had much practice in pretending, Jed’s spirits didn’t rise appreciably. He trudged up the stairs of the fancy hotel Tacita insisted they stay in as though he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders.
# # #
Rosamunda inspected the hotel room closely, sniffing into every corner, scratching the flocked wallpaper, visiting under the bed, investigating the gilt claw feet on the chairs and table, and taking a tentative nip at the draperies. At last she decided the room would do. It wasn’t up to her standards, but it was far superior to any of the other accommodations she’d been subjected to recently.
Tacita placed a plush velvet cushion from the sofa on the floor for her. After giving her mistress a baleful stare, which Tacita completely ignored, Rosamunda lifted her dainty paws and climbed onto the cushion.
Imagine, having to give up her rightful place in Mistress’s bed in order to accommodate that oaf, Jed Hardcastle. Rosamunda’s sense of correctness in the universe had suffered many blows lately, including Mistress having taken to calling her by a silly diminutive, but this last was the most severe. Rosamunda had always slept with Mistress.
She felt exceedingly ill-used when she turned around thrice, dug madly at the velvet fabric for several seconds, and sank into a furry curl of resentment on the cushion.
Chapter 15
Jed took Tacita to the opera that night. He didn’t know what possessed him to ask her, but something did, she accepted, so here they were, looking like underdressed chickens in a flock of peacocks.
“Shoot, I didn’t know folks dressed so fancy to hear a bunch of people sing,” he murmured as he escorted Tacita to her seat. Before they’d arrived at the opera house, he’d thought her gown must be the fanciest he’d ever seen. He realized his mistake as soon as the cab disgorged them amid a sea of men in long tails and beaver hats and ladies trussed up like geese with whalebone and decorated in ruffles, diamonds and furs.
“Yes, we do seem to be a bit less elaborately clad than the rest of these people,” Tacita said, apparently unaffected by the matter. “But it was so lovely of you to ask me, and it’s such a pleasure to go to such a function, that I don’t mind.”
Her smile was so warm, so lovely, so affectionate, that Jed guessed he didn’t mind either. Mind? Hell, he’d have been willing to show up at this shindig buck naked if she asked him to. That damned pansy Englishman had better appreciate what he was getting in Tacita Grantham, is all Jed had to say about it, or he’d have to answer to Jed Hardcastle.
The folks in Denver didn’t seem to mind their less-than-magnificent state of dress. After the first act, Jed figured it was because their senses had been blunted by exposure to the screechy warbles emanating from the stage.
Then, during the second act, his own sensibilities were scandalized when several ladies in pink tights pranced out onto the stage. Shoot, he hadn’t seen meat that rare since he visited a saloon in Kansas City in eighty-nine. The pigeons in the K.C. coop had been displaying their wares for purchase. These birds only seemed to have been stuck in the middle of the opera in order to titillate the audience. As far as Jed was concerned, the former performance was more honest than the latter.
“Don’t be silly, Jed,” Tacita purred into his ear when he voiced his outrage during an interval. “That’s only the dance. There’s always a ballet in the middle of an opera.”
; “It’s immoral.”
“It’s not immoral. It’s art.”
“It’s art for a female to strip herself naked and prance around in front of five hundred people?”
“For heaven’s sake, Jed! Those women weren’t naked. They were in costumes, and they were performing a ballet.”
“Like hell.” He folded his arms over his chest and glared at the drawn curtains sheltering his eyes from the licentious display that had lately cavorted across the stage.
“You’re being silly.” Tacita’s tone suggested his attitude peeved her, too.
“You think I’m being silly? What if I told you I’ve seen women dressed just like that, singing and dancing in front of a bunch of drunkards in saloons? Would you call that silly?”
“Of course not!” Tacita began to fan herself, and Jed noticed her cheeks had gone pink. He was still mad and didn’t care if he’d offended her.
“What’s the difference between this and that?”
“It’s entirely different! Those females who dance in saloons are—are not ladies.”
“And these are?”
“Well—well, yes, they are. They’re in the chorus and undoubtedly studying to become lead singers one day.”
“Lead singers, my ass.”
“Jed!”
“They’re hoping some rich silver millionaire in the audience will spot ‘em and offer ‘em a position in his bedroom, is what they’re doing.”
“Jed!”
“Bet I’m right.” He nodded with mulish satisfaction.
“You are not.” Tacita’s fan sped up and she sounded really cross. “Why, I went to the opera all the time while I was going to school in New York City. If there was anything scandalous about it, Miss Featherstone would never have taken us there.”
