Wilda's Outlaw

by Velda Brotherton

  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.

&nb
sp; “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.

  How nearly impossible it was to resist jerking it from his unbearable touch. Dear God, she wanted out of this trap!

  “Better, much better.”

  Despite her vow to behave herself, she eyed his attire, a brown and tan riding habit complete with jacket and shiny knee-high boots, and remarked, “You as well,” then added, “Sir,” when his black eyes flashed.

  In silence, he moved behind the desk, as if putting it between them would make this easier. His long, delicate fingers played with a silver letter opener, and he held her gaze, not saying anything until knots grew in her stomach and her jaw quivered. She had gone too far this time.

  “Well, sit. Do sit,” he finally demanded.

  Definitely an order. Shifting the voluminous skirts to one side, she obeyed, but remained perched on the edge of the overstuffed divan.

  Leather creaked when he lowered himself into his chair, continued to finger the letter opener. “Now, as to your behavior last night, I am well assured that you were exhausted after your interminably long journey. That is no excuse for speaking out of turn, but I am willing to overlook it as poor judgment on your part. As my wife you will be expected to speak in a civil tone at all times and only when I speak to you, and to obey my wishes and be available whenever I need you…for anything.” He paused, peered at her through his eyebrows. “Do you understand?”

  Heat rose in her throat and she could neither swallow nor speak. She tried clearing it, but only managed an embarrassing croak. Some things she could not imagine. Lying in this man’s bed was one of them.

  “Well, speak up woman.”

  All manner of replies crowded into her mind, but she ordered her tongue to cooperate. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  It was all she could say. No doubt a good thing, too, for she was sorely tempted to tell the man off, which would have done no good at all. This was to be her life, and she might as well learn to live it as best she could. She had few options, none of them attractive. A bad choice would see her, her sister Rowena, and their cousin Tyra cast out of this place in a strange land without hearth and home. Or he could return all three to the charity house at St. Ann’s in Manchester. Killing him was a temptation, but certainly not acceptable.

  He interrupted her silent reverie. “I see you have been rendered speechless. I do hope you will learn to carry on a conversation. Perhaps Marguerite could instruct you, she seems to deal well with that husband of hers.”

  “I…no one needs to instruct me. I am capable of carrying on a conversation, at least with any civilized person—”

  “Which I am not, of course.”

  “No…I mean, of course not. I did not mean that…exactly.”

  “Exactly what did you mean, my dear?” His tone turned deceptively gentle, but his expression was anything but.

  How could he be so handsome and so frightening at the same time?

  “I meant, I simply meant that you have put me at a distinct disadvantage by challenging me in such a way. I am willing to be an obedient wife and perform my duties with a smile. But it would not hurt you to treat me with more respect as well, if that is what you expect in return.” By the time she finished, her stomach was in turmoil.

  His face turned red, the scar a dark slash. “Respect? Respect? You are to be my wife, not a business associate.”

  The roar of his voice made her cringe, but she did not back down. “As I understand it, sir, ours is a business arrangement. I will do my part and you will do yours. It would be so much more pleasant if we were at least kind to each other.”

  “Pleasant? Kind? Successful people are not kind to each other. We get what we want out of this life, not because we are kind but because we do not allow others to deter us. I desire a submissive wife. Marguerite kindly introduced you to me, and I saw in you the possibility of an attractive partner who would defer to my wishes. Who would be grateful to me for taking her…you, and I might add, your meek sister and odious miscreant of a cousin, out of that sewer in which you were living. I made a bargain with you. I will keep it. As will you. Nowhere in that bargain did I say that you would be my equal, that we would discuss how I should act toward you or anyone else, or that you would dictate my actions in any way. Is that clear enough?”

  Teeth clamping her lower lip to prevent any further back talk, she nodded her head, then sa
id, “Yes, sir, perfectly clear.” He was an impossible dolt, a dunderhead, what one of the stable boys at St. Ann’s called an arsehole. Wouldn’t Marguerite love her having such thoughts?

  ****

  The next morning, garbed in the clothing Rachel had loaned him, the pretty English woman’s gold cross and chain tucked safely into his pocket, Calder rode into Victoria City to inquire about a job. Leaving his Colt and holster in the saddlebag, he stepped up on the boardwalk and headed toward the newly erected building where he’d been told he could learn who was hiring.

  The room smelled of newly cut lumber. A lanky American sat behind a makeshift desk at the front of the store, papers spread before him. Certainly not the English fop he had expected to be in charge. A hand printed sign announced, SIX BITS FEE.

  “My name’s, uh…Joshua Lane, and I was told I might could find myself a job here.”

  Without speaking, the man tapped his pencil on the sign.

  Calder dug in his pocket and counted six bits from the scant handful of change. “Do I get this back if it don’t work out…I mean if I don’t get the job?”

  “Nope,” the man said tersely. “I still did the hunting and sending. No reason I’d give you your money back.”

  Calder eyed the precious coins lying on the desk, then shrugged. What the hell? He didn’t have much of a choice, save to ride all over town inquiring, and that’d make too many folks remember him later. Probably wouldn’t lead to a job either.

  “Well?” the man prodded.

  “Okay, fine. What’ve you got?”

  Nodding, the man studied several lists, tracing the words with a grimy fingertip. “Well, you’re in luck, then, that is if you can handle blacksmithing. There’s tons of work to be done, more than can be handled by the one man who’s took on the job. He says he’ll try out an apprentice. You interested?”

  Aware he shouldn’t be too eager, Calder nibbled his lip. “I don’t need no apprenticing. I’ve done that kind of work, with my pa, when I was but a shave tail.”