This Fierce Splendor: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Iris Johansen

  Dominic placed her on the bed and stepped back. “Silver should be here in a moment. Is there anything I can get you before I leave?” His words were impeccably polite.

  She experienced a throb of disappointment, bewildering in its intensity. For a few moments she had thought she had come closer to understanding him than ever before, and now he had once more shut the door on revelation. The room that had seemed so welcoming was suddenly chill and foreign and the man before her was a stranger too. How else could she expect to feel in a place where young men could be taken out and hung like fowl in a butcher shop? She swallowed to ease the sudden nausea that assaulted her along with the memory of the hanging. She sat up hurriedly and smiled with an effort. “No, thank you.” She smoothed a strand of pale brown hair neatly behind her ear with nervous fingers. “I’ll be quite all right. Your mother said your father wished to see you, and I wouldn’t want you to keep him waiting.”

  He hesitated, his eyes narrowed on her face. Then he sat down beside her on the bed. “A few more minutes won’t hurt.”

  “No, really I—”

  “I’m staying,” he said flatly. “My mother was right, you’re pale as death. I thought once you were away from Hell’s Bluff it would be better. It’s not, is it?”

  She shook her head. “I keep remembering,” she whispered. “I keep seeing.… You were there. You know what I see.”

  He nodded. “And I can’t promise you it will go away, but it will lessen. In the meantime, you’ll just have to try to think of something else.” He smiled with surprising gentleness. “Would you like me to tell you about how my father managed to give my mother her palace?”

  “You said your vaqueros had built it. ‘Vaquero’ is Spanish for cowboy, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “It was a little more involved than that actually. Sixteen years ago Da couldn’t have afforded to build anything grander than a teepee. We’d been burned out three times by the Apaches and every time we gathered a decent herd together, the Indians raided us again, putting us right back where we started. Da finally managed to get one herd to market and decided he had to do something.” He paused, a reminiscent smile touching his lips. “We crossed the Rio Grande and rode deep into Mexico to a village called San Felipe. Da had heard the whole country was suffering from a terrible drought at the time and the herds down there were skin and bones. But Lord, they were cheap.” His grin deepened. “Very, very cheap. None of us spoke more than a few words of Spanish but Da managed to make himself understood. He bought any animal on four feet down to the last heifer and made a deal with every able-bodied man in the village to come back to Killara and work for us. He promised them wages, a place to build their own homes on the property, schooling for their children. They didn’t have anything to lose and everything to gain. It was the kind of arrangement they understood on the ranchos down there. They accepted Da as their patrón and helped us drive the cattle home to Killara. Then we turned around and went back and moved the entire village of San Felipe to Killara.” He made a face. “Hell, it was harder than shifting those longhorns. They brought everything with them, wheelbarrows carrying everything from furniture to pots and pans, and wagons filled with babies, grandmothers, chickens, and geese.” He shook his head. “And mules. My God, how I hated those mules. There aren’t any more devilish creatures on the face of the earth than those sons of Satan. I was only fourteen, but I felt as if I were ninety and climbing fast by the time we reached Killara.”

  A tiny smile tugged at her lips. She could almost see the young boy, Dominic, trying to deal with that motley collection of humanity and animals. “You carry your years very well. You don’t look a day over thirty,” she teased.

  “Because I make sure I don’t come within a mile of those long-eared fiends these days.” He looked down at her hand on the velvet coverlet. Such a small hand, fine-boned, graceful, and fragile. Without thinking, he started to reach out and touch her. He stopped, letting his hand fall to the coverlet a few inches from her own. “Well, Da got his herd and my mother got her fine house. Da told the vaqueros if they’d build him a great house, he’d see that they would never have to worry about a place to live or work again. My brother Donal even found a bride down there, which was a damn good thing. We might not have gotten this place built for another ten years without Manuela to interpret for us.” He grinned. “Come to think of it, the reason this place looks like one of those fancy hidalgo’s haciendas is probably Manuela’s doing. She was the daughter of a Spanish nobleman visiting in San Felipe when Donal met her, and she never did like the idea of living with a bunch of wild gringos. It’s entirely possible she told the vaqueros we wanted a house like the ones she was used to in Spain. After Donal died she sure hightailed it back to Spain in a hurry to live with her more ‘respectable’ relations.” His smile faded. “But she took her son, Lion, with her. She had no right to do that. He was a Delaney and Donal’s son. He belonged to Killara.”

  She was gazing at him in wonder. “You love them all, don’t you? Every single Delaney who walks the earth.”

  “They’re my family,” he said simply. “My blood. We don’t always agree, but the bond is there. We’re a part of each other and a part of Killara.”

  Elspeth felt again a piercing envy born out of her loneliness. She looked down at Dominic’s big, tanned hand on the bed beside her. Why had he stopped before he touched her? She would have liked to have had the comfort of his hand on hers. But would it have been comfort? There was an odd tingling in the center of her palms as she thought about Dominic’s fingers moving on her flesh. His fingers were long and hard and yet there had been no hardness as they had moved down to curl in.… Her cheeks suddenly flushed and she tried to remember what Dominic had been saying. “You’re very fortunate.” Her words came haltingly and she swallowed to ease the tightness of her throat. “Sometimes families aren’t quite so amiable.”

  The velvet coverlet was soft beneath his fingers, and he began to rub his palm lazily back and forth, enjoying its texture. His index finger began to thrust absently, rhythmically, into its soft pile. There weren’t many textures as sensually pleasing to the touch as velvet. At the moment he couldn’t remember anything that equaled it except Elspeth’s silky white thighs, her tight springy curls clinging seductively to his fingers. The muscles of his stomach began to knot painfully and the air left his lungs. His hand slowly closed on the fabric of the coverlet, his nails rending its delicacy with unconscious force. He cleared his throat but his voice was still a hoarse rasp. “So I understand. You’re right, I’ve been lucky.”

  “You can leave us now, Dominic.” Silver stood in the doorway. “You heard your mother, the old man wants to see you.”

  For a moment Dominic was tempted to order Silver out of the room. He was hurting. He wanted to lock the door and lie down on this big soft bed beside Elspeth and take off—Christ, he couldn’t stand much more of this. He forced his hand to unclench and release the velvet captured in his clasp and then stood up. “See that she has breakfast and then a good rest.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me what to do,” Silver said harshly. “I don’t need anyone—” She stopped. “Get out!”

  Dominic frowned, his gaze on her flushed cheeks and overbright eyes. “Silver, what the devil is wrong with you?”

  “Get out! The patron wants his prodigal son. No fatted calf but …” She bit her lip and came forward to stand beside the bed. “Elspeth and I don’t need you now.”

  “And I don’t need either of you,” Elspeth said quietly. “It’s time I began to take care of myself. I’ll stay here and rest for a few days and then I’ll start for Kantalan.”

  Dominic slowly shook his head. “Why the hell won’t you give up?”

  “Because what I feel for Kantalan is very close to what you feel for Killara.” She raised her hand to stop him as he started to speak. “You needn’t be afraid that I’ll badger you any longer to go with me. I realize now how unfair I was being to assume I had a right to deman
d that of you.” Her lips were trembling as she tried to smile at him. “You were quite right to be annoyed with me. I’ll just have to find Kantalan on my own.”

  “And how do you intend to do that?” Dominic’s voice was harsh with barely concealed violence.

  “I’ll find the other person White Buffalo spoke to about Kantalan and question him about how to get there. Perhaps Silver could take me to her village and persuade White Buffalo to speak to me.” Elspeth’s gaze shifted to Silver’s face. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble? I know I’ve already asked a great deal of you.”

  “White Buffalo is dead,” Silver said. “Quiet Thunder is the medicine man now.”

  “Oh!” Elspeth was momentarily disconcerted and then brightened. “Then perhaps I could speak to him. The legend is supposed to be handed down from medicine man to medicine man.”

  Dominic frowned. “For God’s sake, you can’t go riding into an Apache camp and start asking questions. Geronimo …”

  “I’ve never done anything to hurt them,” Elspeth said. “Why should they hurt me when I want only to ask a few questions? Will you take me, Silver?”

  Silver’s golden face lit with a reckless smile. “Why not? I have no desire to stay in this house.”

  Dominic was torn between the desire to turn Silver over his knee and whale the tar out of her and an aching sympathy for the hurt he knew she was feeling. He had known as soon as he had seen Silver’s face that his mother had said something that stung. They couldn’t be together for five minutes without a quarrel erupting. He supposed it was natural for two strong women to be in conflict, but it was damnably inconvenient that Silver had been goaded to defiance at the same time Elspeth decided to exert her independence.

  “Good, then it’s decided,” Elspeth said. “Thank you, Silver. I’ll try—”

  “No!” Dominic’s low voice was explosive. “If you think I’m going to let you leave here and wander all over hell and back on some wild goose chase, you’re dead wrong.”

  Elspeth frowned. “I don’t know why you should be upset. I should think you’d be grateful. Perhaps you didn’t understand me. I’m no longer asking you to do anything to assist me. Thank you for your concern, but you needn’t trouble yourself about me at all from now on.”

  “Oh, needn’t I?” Grateful? He wanted to put his hands around her slender white throat and strangle her. How dare she try to calmly dismiss him from her life. Didn’t she realize she belonged … He blocked the thought before it could take full form. Didn’t she realize how idiotic she was being? She would get herself scalped or raped, possibly both, and all because she wouldn’t give up a damned childish dream. He rose and turned on his heel. “That’s a great relief to me. I certainly don’t have the time to worry about a crazy woman.” He strode quickly toward the door, every step radiating impatience and anger. “You can do what you please.”

  “Thank you.” Elspeth’s voice was low and clear behind him. “I shall.”

  Dominic closed the door behind him with a force that was only a shade away from a slam. He stood beside the door, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Jesus, she was going to do it. She meant what she said and wouldn’t ask him again to take her to Kantalan.

  The knowledge should have relieved him, but not when he realized what Elspeth’s next step would be. He started down the hall toward the door at the far end of the corridor. He should go down to the library to Da, but it would have to wait. At the moment it was urgent he speak to Rising Star.

  11

  A white mist, enormous dark eyes, and clear, gentle serenity.

  Elspeth drifted softly up from the darker mists of slumber to look at the strange woman sitting in the tufted green velvet chair beside the bed. She felt no sense or unease or surprise, just the same tranquility that had flooded her when she had opened her eyes. “Hello,” she whispered.

  “Hello.” The woman’s voice was mellow as dark honey and a lovely smile lit her dusky face. “I hope you will forgive my intruding on your privacy. I asked my niece to permit me to sit with you until you awakened from your nap. I am Rising Star. I am married to Dominic’s brother, Joshua.”

  Elspeth sat up quickly. “I’m very happy to meet you.”

  The woman before her was in her late twenties or early thirties and was as different from Silver as the sun was from the moon. The burning vitality that fueled every movement and action of her niece was missing in Rising Star. She sat in the chair as straight and graceful as a young queen, her loose white gown unable to disguise the fact that her slim body was heavy with child. Her thin high-cheekboned face was dominated by huge dark eyes that shone with humor and warmth, and her smile was truly beautiful. Glossy dark hair was pulled away from her face in a neat bun, every tendril carefully trained to smooth order.

  “Dominic came to see me.” Rising Star’s lips curved in amusement. “He was most upset. I would be interested to know how you accomplished that feat. Dominic prides himself on his control. I haven’t seen him lose his composure since he was a young boy.” The smile faded. “He had reason to develop control; his life has not been easy.”

  “You’ve known him for a long time? I understood he had returned to Killara only infrequently during the last ten years.”

  Rising Star nodded. “Yes, but I grew to know him well the year after I married Joshua. We became very close.” She paused. “We shared … something. It became a bond.” Her lashes lowered to veil her eyes as she looked away from Elspeth’s face. “This morning he came to ask me to send a message to Quiet Thunder and tell him not to help you.”

  A swift flame of anger sprang to life within Elspeth. “That wasn’t fair. He may not want to help, but he has no right to try to hinder me.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Rising Star said. “Dominic hasn’t learned that there are some patterns that can’t be altered no matter how we try. He thinks if he denies that Kantalan exists, the prophecy will not come true.”

  “You know about Kantalan?” Elspeth’s face was alive with excitement and eagerness. “What prophecy?”

  Rising Star leaned her head on the high back of the chair, her gaze on the green velvet of the canopy. “Dominic does not want you to know. He is wrong. I told him that I would not put barriers in your way, and that I might decide to tell you everything. We must make our own choices.” She shook her head wearily. “Though in the end there may be no choice for any of us. White Buffalo said the pattern was very clear.”

  “The prophecy,” Elspeth said, scarcely breathing. She was so close after all these years. “Do you know where Kantalan is located? Did White Buffalo tell you?”

  “Yes.” Rising Star was silent a moment. “I’ve known about Kantalan since my fourteenth year. After my rites of womanhood White Buffalo took me to his lodge and told me of the prophecy.”

  Elspeth held her breath, her heart pounding, afraid to say anything, afraid to do anything that might stop Rising Star from speaking.

  Rising Star’s gaze left the canopy to return to Elspeth. “What do you know of Kantalan?”

  Elspeth moistened her lips with her tongue. “It’s a city as architecturally beautiful as Babylon, whose people were peace-loving and more civilized than the ancient Greeks. They had acquired knowledge that was truly astounding. They worshiped the sun god, Ra, as the Egyptians did, and they loved beauty and art and music and—” She stopped. How could she put it into words? She finished simply. “It was paradise.”

  Rising Star shook her head. “No, not paradise. Kantalan was flawed.”

  “No!” The denial was as instinctive as it was violent. Elspeth drew a shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice, but I think you must be wrong. The legends say it was a perfect city.”

  “A city is only as perfect as its people, and people are never perfect.” Rising Star’s lips tightened. “We work, we try, but our perfection, or lack of it, is always in the eye of the beholder.”

  There was a thread of pain in Rising Star’s voice and El
speth realized suddenly that the Indian woman was no longer speaking of either the poeple or the city of Kantalan, but something intensely personal.

  Rising Star shook her head and tried to smile. “Centuries ago a young man named Cadra came to our village. He was very oddly and richly dressed and he wore around his throat a necklace of silver and turquoise. The young man knew many strange and wonderful things. Our wise men were like children compared to him. He could have become a god in their eyes, but he did not wish it. He said he had been sent by his mistress to live among them and tell the tale of Kantalan and prepare the way for the four who were to come after. Cadra became the medicine man of our tribe and lived with my people until he died. He never took a wife and there were some who said that his love was so great for the clairana he had left in Kantalan that there was no room in his heart for anyone else.”

  “Clairana?” Elspeth repeated. The word was unknown to her and yet oddly familiar. “That was the name of his mistress?”

  “No, clairana was her title. Sayan was the high priestess of Kantalan, the keeper of the flames. She saw visions of what was to come and many times predicted disasters that enabled her people to keep themselves from harm. She was the most honored woman in Kantalan, and the priests of Ra were very pleased with her.” Rising Star smiled crookedly. “Why shouldn’t they be? They shone in her reflected glory and soon came to think of it as their own. Then their docile Sayan made a mistake. She fell in love with a young soldier and they lay together. It was forbidden for the high priestess to give herself, for according to the traditions dictated by the priests, the clairana must remain untouched. The priests declared her no longer the clairana of Kantalan and told the people that Ra had taken away her powers.”