by Diana Palmer
She went to her own room in the suite they occupied and locked herself in. It was as well that she had, when her father staggered up the steps two hours later, having imbibed heavily with some acquaintances. But this time, fortunately, he was too soused to cause any trouble. She heard him fall onto the sofa in their sitting room and closed her eyes gratefully. At least tonight she did not have to fear the violence that strong drink worsened in him.
He had a hangover the next morning and barely spoke to Amelia, even at breakfast. But as he went out, he paused to remind her to pack.
"For by this afternoon, I expect that we shall have a house," he said stiffly, carefully keeping his eyes from her cheek. It wasn't swollen or obviously damaged, but he looked guilty and morose.
"Very well," Amelia said gently.
He hesitated, but only for an instant. He left, and Amelia went upstairs to gather their things, mentally hoping that he would relinquish the idea and that they would not have to move. Perhaps the house he found would be too expensive. Yes. The thought cheered her, and she went about cleaning the suite in a little less melancholy mood.
Her mind went homing to King, and she wondered that she couldn't stop thinking about him. He was certainly as bad as her father, with his cold eyes and contemptuous voice. But she couldn't help but ponder on his slow, hungry kisses. The emotion in them was hardly pretended. Certainly, he felt something for her, even if only an unwilling attraction. But her father despised him. And, of course, King despised her. He'd made sure she knew that it had only been curiosity that had caused him to kiss her in the rose garden. She knew that there was no hope in mooning over him. But all the same, it was very difficult to get her mind on another subject.
That evening her father came home in a rare good mood, and Amelia felt apprehensive.
"I have found the perfect house. It is furnished, and because of my friendship and business dealings with Brant, the man is willing to let it go for a pittance! Monday morning the arrangements will be final, and we shall move on Tuesday."
Amelia tried not to show her fear. "Shall it be large enough for Quinn to live with us?" she asked hopefully.
He frowned. "Why should Quinn wish to live with us? He is quite happy in the Ranger barracks. It is a small house, Amelia, not a mansion, and will barely be sufficient for the two of us. However, there is a large parlor. I expect to do a great deal of entertaining in future. You will be my hostess, and I hope you will not disgrace me with any shows of belligerence such as you presented yesterday. I do not enjoy striking you. However, a child should respect its parent."
She stared at him coolly, without blinking. "The newspaper featured a story which advocates public stocks for men who beat women."
He drew himself up to his full height. "You know very well that I was drunk that night I hit you with the leather strap," he said shortly. "And you promised never to speak of it again!"
Her hands locked together shakily. "You were not drunk last evening when you struck me."
"You were belligerent and disrespectful! I had every right to punish you!"
He was going white in the face, and his voice was raised, loud, threatening. Her strength of will began to dwindle under the force of it. He looked wild. His eyes were those of some savage animal, and she was afraid that she might have provoked him too far.
"Shall I tell the landlady that we will be down to supper directly?" she asked in a softer tone.
He glared at her, his eyes fixed, glassy. He blinked, then, and touched his temples, wincing, as if in pain. "What? Supper? Yes, go ahead, tell her."
Amelia left the room quickly but not with noticeable speed. She didn't want to incite him again.
Once in the hallway, with the door shut, she leaned back against the wall, shaking. She could not bear to let him humiliate and persecute her further, but she was afraid to push him and risk more violence. He was less controlled than ever these days, a condition which alcohol precipitated but did not seem to cause. He had not been drinking the day before when he struck her without apparent reason. His eyes then, too, had been glassy and unfocused.
Now it seemed that he would never revert to the kind man he had once been. Every day, he grew worse. The headaches, too, came more regularly, and his personality seemed to deteriorate. He had been rude to King and testy with the other Culhanes. He had humiliated Amelia in front of them all the night he chided her about her piano playing. That lack of manners had never been a fault of his before the boys died. She had blamed alcohol, but it seemed to Amelia now that he drank only when the headaches were very bad. There were also powders that he took, strong sedatives that he had gotten from someonenot, she remembered, from a doctor, either.
She went downstairs to speak to the landlady, feeling morose and miserable. Whatever the problem, it was not going to do her any good to brood about it. Her father was getting worse all the time, and there was nothing she could do. Least of all could she run away, because she had nowhere to run. Quinn had no place for her. She was truly a prisoner.
The one bright spot in her life was Alan. He was kind and gentle, and she liked him. She had no plans to marry him; it would be unfair to involve him in her life when she had no love to give him. But it would be nice to get away from her father for an evening and hear some music. And if Alan were willing, they might pretend to be more than friends, so that her father would be kinder to her.
King had said that he wouldn't allow any alliance between herself and Alan, but she'd worry about that later. Brant would encourage it, and so would Enid. For the time being, King could be kept in the dark. But it would spare Amelia so much violence to have her father believe in an alliance between herself and Alan. Temporarily, at least, it would keep her safe. Her one real terror was the thought of living alone with her father in that house. She mustn't think about it. Perhaps something would happen to prevent it. She had hope, if nothing else.
As the morning sun of Del Rio filtered in through the dirty window glass of the cantina, the girl was crying, great huge sobs that wracked the slender white body that Quinn had possessed so hungrily. He threw a blanket over her before he got up and dressed. The tears upset him. He didn't know why a woman who'd chosen a life like this would be so hysterical at spending a night in a man's arms. Certainly she wasn't an innocent, even if for a few minutes he had thought her one. She must have known what she was getting into when she agreed to work for the madam. It was odd, though, for a white woman to work in a Mexican brothel.
" Mi padre he will kill you!" she choked, looking at him with venom in her blue eyes.
"If he valued you so much, why did he allow you to work in a brothel?" he demanded hotly, spurred by his own guilt into striking back.
"Brothel?" Her lovely face went blank, and she stared at him with sudden, horrifying comprehension. "A brothel? ¿Una casa de putas ?!"
"That's about the size of it," he agreed, nodding. "How could you not know?"
She bit her lower lip, and the tears came again with great, wrenching sobs. "I am dishonored!" She sobbed. "Disgraced. Padrecito took such care, he and my uncles, to protect me And Manolito's mother was jealous of it. I went to Juarez to help him bring my little brother home, because he had an accident. But he deserted my brother on the trail. He had put peyote in my food, and I knew nothing. He must have brought me here. I only half remember it. " She wiped her tears and shook back her long, black hair. "You bought me?"
"I bought you," he replied coldly.
Her lower lip trembled, but she lifted her chin and stared at him proudly. "I hope that your pleasure was worth my life, because I refuse to live in such disgrace. You have made a puta of me," she choked.
He moved to the bed and sat down beside her, hating the way she flinched back, shivering.
"Don't be stupid," he told her bluntly. "There's no need for that. Only you and I know it even happened, and I swear to God, nobody will hear it from me. Do you think I'm not shamed by it? I had no idea you weren't like the others! I would never have to
uched you if I had known!"
"You would not?"
He searched her wan face and felt a great surge of pity and regret. She was so young. And very, very pretty. She spoke Spanish like a native, but no way was she Mexican.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. " Lo siento ."
She grimaced, wiping the tears away with the backs of her hands like a child. "What will I tell my papa?" she whispered. "That that woman out there, the one who sold me to you, she will tell!"
"She will not," he said shortly, and meant it. "I'll speak to her. She will tell no one."
"You cannot make her be silent, señor ," she said sadly. "She is not the sort of woman to be frightened of a gringo, except one of the dreaded Texas Rangers, and you are not one of those, es verdad ," she said, unaware of his quick glance. "My papa, though, everyone is scared of him. I will tell her who is my papa, and she will be too afraid to speak of this!"
He hesitated. "Who is your papa?"
"Why, Emiliano Rodriguez, of course," she said proudly.
Quinn didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't dare give away anything. He was a Ranger and after Rodriguez, and he'd had the luck to find the outlaw's daughter. He'd have to keep that star hidden for the time being, and perhaps he could get the girl to take him right into Rodriguez's camp. He couldn't believe his good fortune! He hadn't known that Rodriguez had any family here.
"We have to get you out of here and back to your home," Quinn said. "Where is it?"
"A little village, in the north."
"What little village?" he probed carefully.
"Malasuerte." She smiled at his look of ignorance. "It is all right. I will lead you to it."
"Why do you live in Mexico when you're as white as I am?" he asked. "And how can you be Rodriguez's daughter?"
"But, I am Mexican," she replied. "I mean, I was raised here, in Mexico, after mi padre saved me from my stepfather. I have lived here since I was ten. Six years, señor ."
"So you're his adopted daughter," he mused. "And you're sixteen. Who would have thought it?" He touched her hair, gently. "You're very pretty."
She lowered her eyes, shamed.
He got up abruptly. "Get dressed," he said. "I'm taking you out of here."
Chapter Eight
» ^ «
Amelia dressed in the same pretty lavender dress she'd made for the Valverde party for Alan. It was a new dress, she thought, and surely no one who'd seen her at the Valverdes would be at the concert. The family budget was still too small to stretch to party dresses, even if Amelia did sew her own. She had a treadle machine, but it was old and temperamental. Besides, she couldn't afford fabric. Her father didn't give her an allowance, and he felt that it was shameful for a woman to work, so she couldn't take in laundry or sewing to make any money. That's why it had been so cruel of him to tell the Culhanes how frivolous she was.
The dress would have to do. And Alan never noticed what she wore. Friends didn't.
Alan called for her promptly, and her father was sober and even congenial.
"I'll have her back at a respectable hour, sir," Alan promised. "How did you fare with the house?"
"I have bought it. We will move Tuesday."
Amelia seemed oddly unenthusiastic, Alan thought. "I'll bring some of the boys, and we'll help, if you like," Alan offered.
"That is very kind of you, sir," Hartwell said. "I will accept your offer with gratitude."
"Shall we go?" Alan asked, offering Amelia his arm.
They rode in the comfortable buggy to the theater, and he smiled at the elegant picture she made in that dress. "You look lovely," he said.
"Thank you. Your mother bought this material for me," she added. "It was so kind of her."
"Yes, King took you to the Valverde fiesta, didn't he?"
She froze up. "He escorted your mother and me."
"I understand. King can be difficult at times," he said slowly. "Perhaps it might help you to understand him a little better if I told you why he is so antagonistic toward you."
"That isn't necessary," she said quietly. "He explained it to me quite vividly."
He frowned. "He did? How odd, because I've never known him to speak of Alice to anyone. I only know because mother told me."
They were at cross-purposes, Amelia decided. "He said nothing of any woman except Miss Valverde, to whom he is all but engaged."
"Darcy," Alan muttered darkly. "He'll regret it for the rest of his life if he marries that cold woman. He is determined not to risk his heart again, that much is obvious." He turned the buggy toward the street that led to Chopin Hall. People were milling about on the sidewalks nearby, dressed in their Sunday best for the concert.
"He had an unfortunate experience?" she asked, hoping Alan would elaborate before they reached the stable, where he would leave the horse and buggy.
"A very unfortunate one. He fell in love with a girl named Alice Hart. She found him quite unattractive except in a material way, but King was too smitten to realize it. She played up to him, promised to marry him. Considering the depth of his attachment to her, I cannot help but believe their relationship was more indiscreet than their families knew. Just about that time, the family suffered a financial setback. Texas cattle fever almost wiped us out. The lovely Alice, realizing that King could well end up penniless, abruptly turned her attentions to an English duke who was visiting El Paso. Within a week they had both been killed in a buggy accident." He pulled into the stables. "King took it badly. Perhaps he felt that she would have turned to him again, in time, because he would never blame her for leaving him. But in some ways, it made Latigo what it is today. It was his single-minded determination to succeed that gave us our wealth. Father was ready to give up. King wouldn't."
"This Alice she was pretty?"
"She was an angel," Alan said honestly. "The most beautiful woman I've ever seen. You're lovely, Amelia, really lovely. King has reason to distrust beauty. He's determined to wed Darcy but only with his mind. She suits him as a wife." He shook his head. "But she'll never suit his heart, and Mother detests her."
"Still, it might be a good marriage," she said quietly. "One never knows."
He didn't reply. He helped her down and left their transportation with the stable owner. There were plenty of people waiting to enter the concert hall. Some of the women were wearing very expensive clothing, and Amelia was glad she was wearing a pretty dress.
"You'll enjoy this orchestra," Alan told her. "I'm told they've played in the north quite extensively. And the score is a favorite of mine: Beethoven's 'Ninth Symphony.' "
"Oh, yes, the one that includes Schiller's 'Ode to Joy,' " she added eagerly.
Alan's eyebrows arched. "Why, Amelia, I had no idea you were conversant with the classics!"
"I know just a little about classical music," she confessed. "Quinn taught me. Father wouldn't allow me to go further than high school, and he even tried to stop me from finishing. He thinks it is silly to educate women."
"And you do not."
"I think a woman's brain is the equal of any man's," she replied, looking up at him. "And that it is a crime to impose limits on knowledge."
"I tend to agree." His eyes narrowed. "King mentioned that you spoke a few words of French?"
It was a question. She moved uncomfortably. "Actually, I read it quite well. I rarely understand much if it is not spoken slowly. Marie helped me to refine my accent."
"You are a creature of hidden talent, Amelia," he said. "What other accomplishments are you keeping concealed so carefully?"
"I am not so talented," she replied.
"What else did your brother teach you?" he persisted.
"A little Latin and Greek," she had to confess. "And I can understand Spanish."
He caught his breath. "And you think of that as a small accomplishment?"
"I have a facility for languages, that is all," she said firmly. "And please do not repeat this conversation. My father would be furious if he knew what Quinn had done."
<
br /> He noticed her hands clasping and unclasping. Beauty and brains, he thought. He could do much worse than court Amelia for himself. There was no real competition, unless he counted Ted. Speak of the devil, he thought, when he saw the tall blond man with a lovely brunette on his arm nearby. That wasn't all he saw. Elegant in evening clothes, his brother King was standing at the opposite side of the lobby with Darcy Valverde.
"Let's go in, shall we?" he asked quickly, before she saw the others. He clasped her hand in his, feeling its soft strength, and smiled at her as they walked into the auditorium.
He led her to a chair, still possessing himself of her hand as he sat beside her.
Amelia felt nothing at his touch. It grieved her, because she had to agree that Alan would make her a good and kind husband. But it wasn't the same as when King had touched her.
King! Why should she be thinking of him? she wondered irritably. She smiled at Alan and allowed him to retain her hand as other people began filing into the room.
"Well, look who's here!" Darcy's shrill voice caught everyone's attention as she saw Alan and Amelia, pausing with an unfriendly King at her side. "How nice to see you again, Miss Howard, and how very pretty you look! I have to confess, I did so admire that dress when I saw you wearing it at our party last week. Isn't it flattering to her complexion, King? Your mother was so kind to buy the material for her."
Amelia could have gone through the floor with humiliation. But she didn't flinch. She simply stared at Darcy without speaking, her face composed, her dignity quietly intimidating. Her dark, unblinking eyes made the girl laugh nervously and begin to fidget.
"Shall we sit down, King? Nice to see you both!"
Darcy pulled at King's lean hand. He was watching Amelia, his expression one of faint curiosity at her composure. She was red-cheeked from Darcy's venomous comments, but she was a trooper. That wasn't cowardice in those dark eyes, it was a dignity beyond her years. He fought down a skirl of admiration for the way she'd handled the insult.
