Apparently he wasn’t going to give her a chance to flee or respond. His hand came up, lifted her chin, traced the curve of her jaw, her cheek, her temple, scalding her with warmth and that indefinable ache that his touch caused. His fingers slid through her hair, twisting into it, holding her head still, as if he actually believed she was capable of resistance; he leaned forward slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, until his mouth closed over hers and she couldn’t tell whether her eyes closed or blindness had been added to insanity.
She felt swept away, free floating, on fire, responding in spite of herself to his terrible, punishing kiss. But why should he want to hurt her? It didn’t matter, though. His mouth couldn’t hurt her the way his actions did. At least when she was in his arms she could forget his other women, give herself up to weakness and wanting.
Leslie couldn’t remember how she got back to the Kincaid residence, up to her room. She fell across the bed and buried her burning face in the pillow.
Ward Cantrell was the worst kind of fiend—murderer, train robber, wrecker of reputations and marriages—and she had agreed to become his mistress to save Jennifer! Shame flushed through her like a stain. She would never be clean again, and the worst part was not that he had demanded that price or even that she had agreed to it. The worst part was that she wanted it. In spite of everything she knew about him—she wanted it!
She couldn’t cry. Maybe people who sell their souls to Satan don’t cry. That would be too simple. Oh, God! What had she done? One kiss and she had agreed. She could still feel the way his lips burned into her. It was diabolical. All he would have had to do was ask. She would have consummated their bargain on the spot if he had wanted it. Fortunately he didn’t have the same lack of control she suffered from. He had kissed her and sent her away. If he behaved himself at the party tonight, she would be expected to receive him graciously. He would tell her where…
“I’ll expect complete cooperation, Leslie. Otherwise no deal.”
“Do you love Jennifer?” She had seen the shame in him then, and somehow his knowing how wrong his love for Jennie was softened her. There was conflict in his narrowed blue eyes as well before he finally said, “I’ve loved her for a long time. I’ll need your help.”
Leslie leaped off her bed and ran to the window, too agitated to lie quietly. The garden and stable area were deserted. Unseen starlings, flickers, and wrens argued in noisy exchange, the bold, dominant cactus wren, with its raucous cries, sounding like the winner. Nothing moved in that precise, neatly cultivated oasis. A cat sprawled in a sunny nook, daring the birds to believe his act of indifference. Sounds of young Chane and Amy playing in some part of the house mingled with the bark of a dog in the distance. Youngsters played in the vacant field behind the stable, squealing in glee and outrage. The sun was moving toward the western horizon. Leslie held on to the railing with hands that were white with tension, dreading the party that night. She couldn’t possibly keep seeing Tim while she was, even secretly, Ward Cantrell’s mistress. She would have to tell Tim that she didn’t want to see him again.
She cursed the fates that had brought her there, only to let her fall under the spell of a man with no sense of responsibility, no future, no compassion, no morals, only a diabolical touch that left her too weak to resist him.
Ward had watched Leslie Powers depart, slim, proud, defiant, and turned away. He had gotten his revenge—she was terrified and repelled, but she had agreed to be his mistress. If it didn’t hurt so bad, it would be funny.
He poured himself a double and drank it. Not even the burn and jolt of good whiskey could dispel his bitterness. The one girl he wanted, he had to blackmail into his bed; the others he could have just by forgetting to lock a window or a door.
He would tell her after the dinner party that he had no intention of accepting her noble sacrifice, but she deserved to sweat a little. He hadn’t forgiven her for Summers.
That brought a sardonic smile to his lips. Unfortunately she didn’t need or want his forgiveness. She would love whoever she wanted to love and do one damn fine job of it, without any blessing from him.
The McCormicks’ invitation was for a formal dinner party. Leslie knew Sandra McCormick only as one of the girls Ward called Trinket. Seeing the house, like a gingerbread mansion, with turrets, verandas, gables, and loggias, she thought she had been transported to the Black Forest. “You would expect to find a house like this tucked away in some Alpine Village,” she murmured to Tim, taking his hands as he helped her disembark from the phaeton he had rented for the occasion.
They walked quickly up the first concrete walk Leslie had seen in Arizona. The house and grounds were ablaze with light. Uniformed footmen helped occupants from the line of carriages that slowly crunched forward on the gravel concourse leading up to the house. A virtual army of stiff-collared waiters were on hand to assist. Leslie couldn’t believe she was still in Arizona. This was like a night at the opera.
Six lavishly set tables were strategically placed amid potted palms and crystal chandeliers. Leslie and Tim were escorted to a table where Elizabeth Cartright chatted with her escort, Winslow Breakenridge. Sandra introduced her gentleman friend as Dusty Denton. They sat next to an empty chair that Sandra was trying desperately to ignore.
No one inquired as to whom it was for—Sandra was as transparent as the diaphanous chiffon wrapper she wore around her slim shoulders. But even agitated, Sandra was lovely, Leslie had to admit. She wore a fashionable, dark brown satin gown that brought out the healthy golden tones of her skin and hair and emphasized her gray eyes, making them look smoky and mysterious.
Leslie wore an elegant black velvet gown that hugged her slender curves and made her feel older. “Leslie, darling,” Tim had said as she descended the Kincaids’ staircase. “You take my breath away! I can’t find words to pay tribute to the way you look tonight—older surely, sophisticated undoubtedly, mysterious, provocative. I could go on and on.”
He had taken her hands and smiled down at her. “But what happened to the Leslie of the teasing smile and the sunshine?” She had forced a sunny smile to stop the outpouring of compliments.
“I’m in disguise, Tim! Can’t you tell?”
The Kincaids made their entry together, without Cantrell, and Elizabeth looked haughty but undaunted. Cantrell arrived late, and Elizabeth leaned forward and whispered to Marybelle that Jennifer had apparently decided to play it safe. Leslie burned with the urge to tell her off, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She felt strangely subdued.
Cantrell looked subdued as well. He accepted Sandra’s gush of gratitude silently, nodded to everyone around the table, and sat down. Leslie looked up into his eyes and was not prepared for the jolt of reaction they caused in her. The blood began to pound in her chest and throat, and she felt weak with the tension and fear that had consumed her since her visit to his house. That singular look that he flashed her—a mere quirking of eyebrows and flexing of certain face or eye muscles—communicated volumes. His eyes were filled with tiny glints of recognition that seemed to demand and evoke a response from her. Tonight, for whatever reason, his power and her response were painfully intensified.
Little was expected of her conversationally; the men at the table were engrossed in a discussion precipitated by Winslow, who had said that Prescott, up north, was the most sophisticated town in Arizona.
“What makes you say that?” Tim demanded. “We have a sizeable colony of easterners here in Phoenix. I doubt that you’ll find a more sophisticated group than what is seated around this table.” He eyed the others with obvious satisfaction. “Denton, where are you from originally?”
“Massachusetts.”
“Cantrell, where do you call home?”
“Upstate New York.”
“You see,” Tim said, “even they were exposed to civilization at one point. We are all émigrés, so to speak, living on a rude frontier, but doing it in style. For the most part,” he said, looking pointedly at Cantrell and De
nton.
Winslow chuckled, a superior, condescending sound. “Almost fifty percent of the people in Prescott are hard-core easterners, and wealthy.”
“Are you sure about those figures?” Tim demanded.
Winslow nodded, his smile smug. “Are you ready for this? Prescott does not have a single church.”
Tim was undaunted. “So they are pagans. That does not necessarily make them sophisticated. If you want to talk blatant paganism, let’s talk San Francisco, where houses of ill-repute are considered necessary by the city fathers to insure the safety of their daughters.”
Leslie barely listened. She was too painfully aware of Ward’s presence across the table from her. She had felt vulnerable and exposed ever since he had kissed her. Now, seeing him, she feared that he had reconsidered and realized that he couldn’t give up Jennifer, that maybe he had decided to compromise by being more discreet in public. What was he thinking? Did he find her at all attractive? Or only a nuisance to be dealt with?
Ward was trying not to think. Leslie Powers was by far the loveliest girl there. Even with a cloud hanging over her head she managed to look composed and totally feminine. He had contemplated numerous ways to torture her for her lack of trust, but now he couldn’t bring himself to use any of them. A woman willing to sacrifice her own honor to save his sister’s was not someone he could torment. Funny he hadn’t realized that ahead of time.
He tried to concentrate on Blond Trinket, but that was too much like reading the labels on a row of identical tin cans; there were no surprises. He vowed that as soon as he could get Leslie alone he would tell her he had no intention of taking advantage of her, then leave Phoenix. He was tired of resting and recuperating. He longed for a return to the rougher, simpler life of the open range: canned beans and uncomplicated señoritas who did not linger in a man’s mind, making him feel dissatisfied and irritable.
Dusty Denton had brought word that Doug Paggett and the rest of the men he had summoned were assembled in Buckeye, and that their scouting the mountains to the north had paid off. They had located pens that could be used to load stolen cattle onto Kincaid’s trains. Unfortunately, the books had revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Either the man kept a separate set of T & P’s books, or the entire operation was handled without the knowledge of anyone in the main office. That seemed a remote possibility, but no more remote than that Kincaid, who was a good judge of men, could be that wrong about someone working for him.
The party bubbled like champagne all around her, but Leslie felt locked away by her own feelings. She knew Ward had been raised in the East, but she had still expected him to embarrass himself with the complicated array of dishes, glasses, and silver, but he didn’t seem aware of the opportunities he missed to humiliate himself. Maybe some people are just born knowing everything they need to survive, she thought.
“What school did you attend, Cantrell?” Tim asked, causing Leslie to jerk alert, completely attentive.
Ward glanced at Dusty, then Leslie and Tim. He smiled, and his eyes came alive with mischief. “Radcliffe,” he said.
Dusty Denton, who should have been expecting it, because he alone at the table knew how close that was to the truth, choked on his wine. Dusty and Peter Van Vleet, now passing as Ward Cantrell, had known each other when they were young, dumb, and unable to conceal things from each other. Peter had helped him through biology, and he had stood guard in the cold while Peter stole his first kiss from Dusty’s cousin behind the boathouse at Dusty’s parents’ house. He and Peter were senior students at Harvard University until Peter was caught by a surprise bed check with two naked Radcliffe College students fighting in his bedroom at three o’clock in the morning because they had both climbed in his window on the same night. The two girls were taking turns, and Peter was half-dead from lack of sleep. He had been, until the previous month, a serious student, studying until lights out, falling like a rock into his bed, and sleeping until reveille. Until little Kim, and later her friend, started climbing in his window. If he hadn’t been so bursting with the exuberance and sexual energy of youth, he would have known better. He’d been a fool to let it continue, but Dusty, flushing with the memory of his own reaction to Sandra McCormick, knew only too well that a man’s automatic defenses didn’t work against warm-skinned naked girls who slipped into a man’s arms.
Old Elliott, who had just happened to be Harvard’s president and the father of one of the girls, got his revenge by expelling Peter four months before graduation. The reason that he gave in the letter to Peter’s father, who was a Harvard alumnus and a heavy contributor, was cheating, the most dishonorable type of expulsion any family could suffer. But Peter didn’t find out about the trumped-up charge until he was back in New York, and the events of his homecoming rendered it unimportant.
Sandra, who had been thumping Dusty on the back, grabbed the wine bottle from a hovering waiter and offered to fill anyone’s glass.
Tim frowned. He couldn’t tell if Cantrell was making fun of him for asking or if the man didn’t know Radcliffe was a girls’ college and was merely trying to impress them by using the name of a prestigious eastern school or if he was subtly reminding them what a ladies’ man he was. Tim’s expression wavered between delight at such ignorance and incredulity. He could barely control himself. “Ahhh, a serious student!”
Cantrell endeavored to look humble while accepting Tim’s sardonic praise.
“Many of us,” Tim said, tongue in cheek, “who attended less prestigious schools had some difficulty qualifying. I’m curious. With its being one of the most elite universities in the country, was being accepted at Radcliffe difficult in any way?”
Ward shrugged. “Well…yes and no.”
Tim waited, controlling the sense of expectant delight.
“Well, you know how thoroughly they examine and scrutinize everything from your bloodline to your family’s bank account,” Ward drawled.
“Yes, yes…” Tim said, egging him on.
“Well, scholastically I was acceptable, financially my family was acceptable, my mother was a Radcliffe alumna. Unfortunately they approved everything except my…uh…excuse me, ladies…gender.”
A flush darkened Tim’s cheeks as he realized Cantrell had led him on a fool’s errand, and he had blithely followed.
Before Tim could reply, Marybelle giggled. “I’ll bet if you were accepted, you would have been the most sought-after roommate in the dormitory.”
“What did you major in?” Sandra asked, joining in.
“Public service,” he said, grinning. Eight years before, when he was expelled from Harvard for what he considered bad judgment bordering on stupidity, it hadn’t seemed so funny.
Summers refused to be put off. “What kind of work do you plan to do, Cantrell?”
“Whatever comes easy,” he said, wondering what Summers was getting at. Everyone in town knew he was working for Kincaid. No one outside of Chane and Jennie knew he was sworn as an Arizona ranger. His cover story had been in the newspaper as well as on half the lips in town.
“Are you still nursing that grudge against Mark Powers and Dallas Younger?” Tim asked, taking a sip of his wine and eyeing Cantrell from beneath hooded eyes.
“Did I have a grudge against them?” Ward asked, alert now that the questioning was showing purpose.
“Didn’t you?” Tim paused, looking significantly at Winslow Breakenridge. “I heard Younger knocked you down during the fiesta days’ parade. Didn’t you try to save Leslie when her horse reared? I was sure someone told me you were talking about killing them both. And with your reputation as a gunfighter I don’t imagine you make idle threats, do you?”
Ward chuckled, his eyes going to Leslie. “I have made threats ranging all the way from idle to outrageous—and that just covers today.”
The girls laughed their appreciation, and Leslie flushed, remembering the implied threat in their bargain.
“Seriously, though, Cantrell, I did hear that Younger is making threats a
bout meeting you—what do you gunfighters call it?—in a showdown,” Tim persisted. “What will you do if he challenges you?”
Ward shrugged. “I’ll decide that if it happens. I haven’t noticed him looking for me in broad daylight.”
“You mean he might try to bushwhack you? Kill you from ambush?”
Sandra frowned at Tim. “Don’t be so morbid. This is a party—not a wake. Anyone like another glass of wine? Ward?”
Small talk resumed, and Leslie noticed that Ward neither drank nor ate much.
When they all moved into the grand ballroom to dance to the imported orchestra, she avoided Cantrell. He seemed fully recovered from his gunshot wound, perfectly capable of supporting not only his own weight but also that of the girls who seemed to cling much too tightly and closely when he danced with them. She stood as much as she could and then excused herself.
Unexpectedly, Leslie found herself alone in the elaborately mirrored powder room with Sandra McCormick. The blonde shrugged, as if she too could not imagine how this had happened. They made small talk for a moment, politely, then Sandra faced her purposefully.
“Do you love Tim Summers?” she asked abruptly.
Leslie frowned her displeasure. “I…” she began uncomfortably, aware that Sandra was her hostess, and she did not want to be rude to one of the Kincaids’ friends.
“Sorry,” Sandra said quickly. “You don’t have to answer.” The look on Leslie’s face was ample reply.
Leslie read Sandra’s face as well and tried to correct the impression she knew Sandra had gotten. “I like him a lot. I’m not a person who falls hastily into love,” she lied.
Sandra laughed. “And Ward Cantrell?” she asked, flushing with pleasure because for a change she had the upper hand in a conversation. Leslie Powers was far more affected than her ladylike exterior seemed to indicate. In sudden sympathy Sandra reached over and patted Leslie’s hand.
“You don’t have to answer that either. You don’t lie well at all. I thought you would.” She paused. “You know, I decided days ago that I hated you, but I guess I don’t.”
The Lady and the Outlaw Page 30
