"Ardith?" She became abruptly aware of Baird looking down at her, his expression intent. "Ardith, are you all right? You haven't heard a word I've said."
She straightened instinctively, aligning her hips and shoulders, lifting her chin. "I'm sorry. I must have been woolgathering."
"You had the most peculiar look on your face."
She shuddered at his solicitous tone. She couldn't let him be kind to her right now. She didn't deserve his kindness after what she'd been thinking.
"I'm fine, really." She raised her chin another notch and scrambled to find a diversion. The perfect one came into focus just beyond Baird's shoulder.
"I want you to ask China to dance."
"Ask her to dance?" he echoed. "Why?"
She nodded to where China and Matt were just coming in from the porch. He turned and followed her gaze, the lines of a frown nestling between his eyes as he looked at them.
"Do it because she's so beautiful tonight," Ardith whispered, suddenly desperate for him to agree to this. "Do it because you're her papa, and she won't be your little girl very much longer."
Do it because she's so like Ariel—and this is the one way I can appease her memory for myself.
Ardith saw the almost imperceptible softening at the corners of his mouth and recognized the dawning of a father's regret. "All right."
Ardith breathed easier after that, and somehow endured the rest of the waltz. She was heartily relieved when Baird left her with Myra and set out across the floor toward his daughter.
Ardith watched as Baird bowed with a flourish over China's hand. The girl flushed and fluttered, then allowed her papa to lead her onto the dance floor.
They were beautiful together. His black hair and sun-darkened skin were the perfect foil for China's porcelain-pale beauty. His height and breadth complemented her slim, coltish figure and proud carriage. He held her gently, tenderly, as if she were spun from moonbeams.
China glowed beneath his regard. She ducked her head and smiled at him, flirting the way all little girls flirt with their papas, practicing at being women where they knew they were safe.
Ardith blinked back another surge of tears. She was so terribly grateful to Baird for giving his daughter that semblance of safety. She was so terribly grateful he'd given her this moment to set her own regrets to rest.
As Baird and China danced past, Myra leaned toward Ardith. "She takes after her mother, does she?"
Ardith nodded, unable to tear her gaze away. "She's the very image of my sister."
* * *
The fight broke out at about quarter to one. At the swell of angry voices, Ardith glanced up from where she was settled in the dining room drinking coffee and resting her feet with a handful of other women.
Not surprisingly, the commotion came from out where the whiskey keg was set up on the porch.
As they listened, boots scuffled across the floor. Wood creaked and crackled as the baluster gave way. Bodies oofed onto the ground beyond it. The chorus of masculine shouts rose to a clamor.
"Wouldn't be a proper party without a fistfight," Myra observed and pushed herself to her feet to go watch. "Wonder what the young bucks found to fight about this time?"
But it wasn't young bucks fighting. It was Baird Northcross and Cullen McKay.
At the edge of the yard they were circling each other, their fists raised. Their clothes were dusty and disheveled. Blood was trickling from the corner of Baird's mouth.
"What are they fighting about?" Ardith asked one of the hands from the '76.
"I don't rightly know, ma'am," he answered. "One minute they was having a drink friendly as you please. The next Mr. Northcross took a swing at Mr. McKay."
Ardith shook her head, more appalled than surprised. These two had been snarling at each other like mongrel dogs every chance they got.
Out on the lawn, Cullen swung at Baird. Baird jerked back and smacked his left into Cullen's chin.
The cowboys around Ardith groaned.
McKay staggered, then righted himself. He rushed at Baird and slammed his fist into the taller man's belly. Baird hunched into the blow, but grunted with the impact. By the way he wavered afterwards, Ardith knew the punch had landed hard.
The two Englishmen circled, rasping, sucking in air. They shifted sideways on the balls of their feet.
Ardith worried her lower lip as she watched them.
The crowd on the porch bawled instructions, wanting excitement, bloodshed, carnage.
Baird took their encouragement and waded in. He slammed a right into Cullen's jaw. The blond man hissed between his teeth and staggered back.
Baird waited, hovering, his eyes aflame.
Why was he so angry? Ardith wondered. He looked like he wanted to rip off Cullen's head.
McKay found his feet and plunged back into the fight.
Northcross covered up to protect himself. Cullen broke past Baird's guard and landed a punch that snapped his head around.
The crowd roared its approval, a loud guttural sound lubricated by liberal amounts of whiskey.
Ardith gasped, wringing her handkerchief. Why didn't someone break this up?
Baird stumbled back, the blood and sweat on his face glistening in the lantern light. He shook himself and came back swinging. He drove his fist into Cullen's belly and followed it with an uppercut.
The cowboys went wild.
McKay reeled back and sprawled in the dust.
Baird stepped over him to press his advantage, but Moreton Frewen pushed him back.
"That's enough!" he shouted. "I don't know what this was about, Northcross, but it's over now."
For a moment it looked as if Baird might take on Frewen, too. Then his fierceness dimmed. He dropped his fists and stood there panting.
"Miss Merritt?" Frewen called out.
Ardith started, surprised to be summoned. Myra pushed her through the crowd to stand before the Englishman who'd made himself the referee.
"I think it's time you took Mr. Northcross home," Frewen advised her.
Ardith stiffened, angry that she'd been singled out. "He's hardly my responsibility."
Yet when Baird swiped at his bloody lip with the back of his hand, she flicked her lace-trimmed handkerchief in his direction. He took it with poor grace and wiped at his face, marking the delicate cloth with things Ardith knew would never come out in the wash.
"The party's over," Frewen announced to everyone else.
A few of the men helped Cullen to his feet. A few others returned to the whiskey barrel. But most of the crowd shuffled back into the house to gather their things and say their goodnights.
While Ardith did her best to disassociate herself from the battered man beside her, one of the Sugar Creek hands brought the wagon around.
"Now don't you worry about those empty dishes or China and Matt getting home all right," Myra said. "You need to be bound up before you get in that wagon, Mr. Northcross?"
"No!" Baird snapped.
"Well, it still might be best if you don't let him drive," Myra advised Ardith. "He's going to be sore enough in the morning without putting any extra strain on those ribs."
Ardith took Baird by the elbow, as if he were Khy. "Engaging in fisticuffs!" she hissed. "Again."
"You don't know anything about it."
Ardith didn't wait for Baird to help her into the wagonbox. She climbed over the wheel herself and heard him catch his breath as he pulled himself up the opposite side.
"Myra and I will take care of everything," Buck leaned in to reassure her.
What Ardith most wanted was for them to take care of Baird. She thanked the foreman anyway and clucked to the horses.
Except for his wheezy breathing, Baird sat beside her silent as a stone.
* * *
You fool! You goddamned fool! Baird hunched on the wagon seat trying to protect what was probably a broken rib. What in hell was he doing brawling like a stripling half his age?
He could tell by Ardith's frigid silen
ce and her poker-straight back that she was even more appalled by his behavior than usual. Not that she didn't have a right to be.
He'd fought in front of his daughter, too. After Frewen had stepped between McKay and him, he'd looked over and seen China standing on the porch steps, her eyes wide with shock. This fight wasn't like the fight he'd had with Burroughs. That had been a point of honor—the man was mistreating his horses. This one had far less noble roots.
How could a daughter respect a father who just behaved the way he had?
He'd picked this fight because McKay had baited him, asking how many cows he meant to take to Cheyenne, asking about other things that were none of his goddamned business. And he'd reacted like a ten-year-old. But how would Cullen know he was short of his quota? Buck would never have said a word. Myra knew the straits they were in, and she wouldn't let on, either.
"Ardith?" Ardith had danced with McKay. He'd seen them chattering like old friends.
"What?" She was concentrating on following the wagon trace that lay like a shadow in a landscape painted buttermilk-blue by the light of the moon.
"Ardith, did you say something to Cullen McKay about us not having enough cattle to meet our quota?"
She must have tightened her grip on the reins because both horses snorted. "Is that what the fight was about?"
"He goaded me," Baird answered. At least he could tell her that much. "He said the men who own the Double T knew our profits were going to fall short of our London shareholders' expectations, and that they meant to buy up the ranch."
"And what did you say?"
Baird shrugged, wishing he could shift the responsibility for the fight to Cullen's shoulders. "I didn't say anything. I hit him."
Ardith must have felt the need to own up, too. "Well, I—I might have mentioned that you—that you had lost some cattle to the Indians. That you were—"
"Short cattle to meet my commitments?"
"I suppose."
The hot bite of betrayal burned in his throat.
"I said you were concerned is all," she offered defensively.
He shot her a withering glare. "What would make you tell him that? Why would you compromise both me and our efforts at the ranch?"
Her mouth narrowed. "I didn't tell him to compromise you. And why does it matter what I told him? You don't give a damn about the Sugar Creek, do you?"
Baird shifted uncomfortably. He still wasn't sure how the ranch had become so important to him. It just had.
He'd be forty this fall, and in all those years he'd never once set his sights on things that didn't come easily. He'd always had a way with horses. Until Bram's death, he'd considered himself a superb hunter and an exceptional marksman. Both were skills he'd mastered without much effort.
Managing the ranch was hard—and he wanted to make a success of it anyway.
He didn't want to care about Buck and Myra and the hands, about ensuring their livelihood. He didn't want to care about meeting his commitments. If he let himself care, it would be agony when he failed.
All his life he'd walled himself off from people who expected things, people his failures could hurt—his mother, old Ben the stable master, Ariel. He'd tried to wall himself off from this, too. But the first time Buck had taken him into the mountains, he'd felt a connection to this land he couldn't deny. He'd seen the possibilities, and that promise had goaded him into wanting something—something he dared not name.
Baird compressed his lips, trying to hold back the admission. "I suppose the ranch has come to matter to me."
Ardith turned to look at him, and he wondered what she saw. A worthless rake? A husband and father who abandoned his wife and family when it suited him? A man who for all his advantages had never amounted to anything?
"Good!" she said.
"Good?" He glanced across at her. There was a slim, satisfied smile on her mouth, damn her.
"Everyone needs to care about something."
He did care about the ranch, and it scared him to death.
The children's expectations scared him even more. Khy looked at him as if he'd invented daylight. Durban's resentment might run deep, but the boy was learning to ride. And then there was China—with her shining eyes and impulsive embraces, making him into the hero he could never be.
And Ardith? What Ardith expected scared him more than anything else. Ardith expected him to be a man worthy of his children's love. How could he live with himself if he failed her—again?
He shifted on the seat, not wanting to think about any of it. He cast about for a diversion and found one.
"I say, Ardith, what the devil is going on between China and Matt Hastings?"
"Why do you ask?" Her voice held a note of suppressed amusement that made him turn and look at her more closely.
"They danced together several more times than was proper," he began and realized he sounded like a fusty, white-haired chaperon.
"I'm not sure London proprieties count out here," she observed mildly.
"When I caught them coming in from the porch, Matt looked like the cat that had lapped up all the cream."
He didn't say that China's hair seemed mussed and her lips were suspiciously rosy. He couldn't bring himself to put his misgivings into words. All he knew was that he wanted to lock his little girl away somewhere and strangle Matt Hastings outright.
"I'd say Matt's smitten," Ardith confirmed.
"How long has this been going on?"
Ardith glanced at him, a smile teasing the corners of her lips. "Since the roundup. Haven't you noticed them together?"
Good God! He hadn't noticed a thing! "She doesn't fancy herself in love with him, does she?"
Ardith hesitated.
His stomach balled, anticipating her answer.
"As a matter of fact, she does."
How could that be? He remembered the tiny dab of humanity Ariel had placed in his arms when he returned from the expedition to Cathay. He'd been clumsy, afraid to hold the child, afraid he'd make it cry. Then China had raised those bright blue eyes to his, and something he'd never expected to feel had flickered to life. It stole through him, stronger than warmth or wonder or pride, a powerful emotion that turned him all quivery inside.
Now Ardith was telling him that his daughter, his baby girl, had fallen in love with somebody else. Pure, rich jealousy stabbed his heart.
"China's too young to be in love!"
"She doesn't think so."
"She's barely fifteen."
"She'll be sixteen just after the new year," Ardith reminded him, then paused. Her voice went softer, as if the words were hard for her. "She's only a few months younger than her mother was when you married her."
Baird realized with a sick twisting in his gut that it was true. But Ariel had had a certain sophistication, an innate understanding of life and men and how society worked.
She'd possessed a nascent sensuality that had run raw between the two of them from the moment they met.
Something about the possessive way Matt's arm had been curled around China's waist when they came in from the porch sent a chill of recognition tingling along Baird's nerves. He'd seduced Ariel the very same way—on a porch in the moonlight with dance music floating around them. If Baird was honest with himself he would have to admit that Ariel had been as innocent, as newly flowered and fragile as China was tonight. And as completely unready for marriage.
Yet barely three weeks after he'd first taken Ariel in his arms, he had spirited her off to Gretna Green. Driven by their fierce physical attraction, Ariel's delight in being courted, and his own headstrong determination to defy his family and live life as he saw fit, they had spoken their vows—a girl too young to be a wife and a man who had yet to prove he deserved one.
And tonight he was sitting beside the woman he and Ariel had betrayed to do that. Without a thought, they'd humiliated her. Ardith had been so shamed by what they'd done she'd fled England to maintain her self-respect.
Baird stole a look at her by the l
ight of the waning moon. Ardith's lips were drawn together, and there was a fine, tight line between her brows.
Was she thinking about China and Matt? Or was she remembering how he and her sister had twisted all of their lives?
Ardith deserved to know how sorry he was for what they'd done to her. One day, if he ever managed to shore up his courage, he would have to tell her how ashamed he was. But not tonight.
Tonight he had to ensure that his daughter didn't make the same mistakes her parents had. "I don't want China spending so much time with Matt Hastings," he decreed, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.
Ardith turned the wagon onto the track that would take them toward home and glanced across at him. "And just how do you mean to keep them apart?"
He settled back against the seat and smiled to himself. For the first time since they'd left the Double T he felt like a man in control. "When we take the cattle up to the high country to graze," he told her, "I'll assign Matt to stay at the summer camp."
Rawlinson Books
Boston, Massachusetts
June 23rd, 1882
My Very Dear Ardith,
I really must tell you how much I have enjoyed the paintings and drawings you have been doing in the margins of your letters. I was especially fond of the ones showing life around the Sugar Creek. They have given me a far clearer picture of where you are and what that part of the world is like than I would have had otherwise.
I hope you won't mind that I have shared the letters with my family. After taking Mother, my sisters, and my nieces and nephews to see a collection of Mr. Catlin's paintings at the museum, I felt compelled to read your letters' most colorful passages aloud. I passed the pages around so everyone could see the illustrations. I must say, all of them are quite in awe of your experiences. Mother says I must invite you to dinner once you return to Boston. I think she has taken a special delight in your travels and wants to hear your stories firsthand.
As I heard them exclaim over the sketches, I found myself wondering if there was some way to incorporate these new subjects into your books. These paintings have so much action, so much life that I believe other children would be as captivated by them as my nieces and nephews were. Perhaps we could begin another series of "Auntie Ardith" books, dealing not with your woodland creatures, but with life in the West. What do you think?
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