by Lind Howard
“I don’t think we’ll need seven of them,” he said drily, and a grim look entered his eyes. “We may not have any kids anyway.”
Her heart jumped at that. She had been down in the dumps since he and Jessie had married two years ago, but she had really dreaded the idea of Jessie having his babies. Somehow that would have been the final blow to a heart that hadn’t had much hope to begin with; she knew she’d never had a chance with Webb, but still a tiny glimmer lingered. As long as he and Jessie didn’t have any children, it was as if he wasn’t totally, finally hers. For Webb, she thought, children would be an unbreakable bond. As long as there were no babies, she could still hope, however futilely.
It was no secret in the house that their marriage wasn’t all roses. Jessie never kept it a secret when she was unhappy, because she made a concerted effort to make certain everyone else was just as miserable as she was.
Knowing Jessie, and Roanna knew Jessie very well, she had probably planned to use sex, after they were married, to control Webb. Roanna would have been surprised if Jessie had let Webb make love to her before they were married. Well, maybe once, to keep his interest keen. Roanna never underestimated the depths of Jessie’s calculation. The thing was, neither did Webb, and Jessie’s little plan hadn’t worked. No matter what tricks she tried, Webb seldom changed his mind, and when he did it was for reasons of his own. No, Jessie was not happy.
Roanna loved it. She couldn’t begin to understand their relationship, but Jessie didn’t appear to have a clue about the type of man Webb was. You could appeal to him with logic, but manipulation left him unswayed. It had given Roanna many secretly gleeful moments over the years to watch Jessie try her feminine wiles on Webb and then throwing fits when they didn’t work. Jessie just couldn’t understand it; after all, it worked on everyone else.
Webb checked his watch. “I have to go.” He swiftly gulped the rest of his coffee, then bent to kiss her forehead. “Stay out of trouble today.”
“I’ll try,” she promised, then added glumly, “I always try.” And somehow seldom succeeded. Despite her best efforts, she was always doing something that displeased Grandmother.
Webb gave her a rueful grin on his way out the door, and their eyes met for a moment in a way that made her feel as if they were co-conspirators. Then he was gone, closing the door behind him, and with a sigh she sat down in one of the chairs to pull on her socks and boots. The dawn had dimmed with his leaving.
In a way, she thought, they really were co-conspirators. She was relaxed and unguarded with Webb in a way she never was with the rest of the family, and she never saw disapproval in his eyes when he looked at her. Webb accepted her as she was and didn’t try to make her into something she wasn’t.
But there was one other place where she found approval, and her heart lightened as she ran to the stables.
When the moving van drove up at eight-thirty, Roanna barely noticed it. She and Loyal were working with a frisky yearling colt, patiently getting him accustomed to human handling. He was fearless, but he wanted to play rather than learn anything new, and the gentle lesson required a lot of patience.
“You’re wearing me out,” she panted and fondly stroked the animal’s glossy neck. The colt responded by shoving her with his head, sending her staggering several paces backward. “There has to be an easier way,” she said to Loyal, who was sitting on the fence, giving her directions, and grinning as the colt romped like an oversized dog.
“Like what?” he asked. He was always willing to listen to Roanna’s ideas.
“Why don’t we start handling them as soon as they’re born? Then they’d be too little to shove me all over the corral,” she grumbled. “And they’d grow up used to humans and the things we do to them.”
“Well, now.” Loyal stroked his jaw as he thought about it. He was a lean, hard fifty and had already spent almost thirty of those years working at Davencourt, the long hours outside turning his brown face into a network of fine wrinkles. He ate, lived, and breathed horses and couldn’t imagine any job more suited to him than the one he had. Just because it was customary to wait until the foals were yearlings before beginning their training didn’t mean it had to be that way. Roanna might have something there. Horses had to get used to people fooling around with their mouths and feet, and it might be easier on both horses and humans if the process started when they were foaled rather than after a year of running wild. It should cut down on a lot of skittishness as well as making it easier on the farriers and the vets.
“Tell you what,” he said. “We won’t have another foal until Lightness drops hers in March. We’ll start with that one and see how it works.”
Roanna’s face lit up, her brown eyes turning almost golden with delight, and for a moment Loyal was struck by how pretty she was. He was startled, because Roanna was really a plain little thing, her features too big and masculine for her thin face, but for a fleeting moment he’d gotten a glimpse of how she would look when maturity had worked its full magic on her. She’d never be the beauty Miss Jessie was, he thought realistically, but when she got older, she’d surprise a few people. The idea made him happy, because Roanna was his favorite. Miss Jessie was a competent rider, but she didn’t love his babies the way Roanna did and therefore wasn’t as careful of her mount’s welfare as she could have been. In Loyal’s eyes, that was an unforgivable sin.
At eleven-thirty, Roanna reluctantly returned to the house for lunch. She would much rather have skipped the meal entirely, but Grandmother would send someone after her if she didn’t show up, so she figured she might as well save everyone the trouble. But she had cut it too close, as usual, and didn’t have time for more than a quick shower and change of clothes. She dragged a comb through her wet hair, then raced down the stairs, sliding to a halt just before she opened the door to the dining room and entered at a more decorous pace.
Everyone else was already seated. Aunt Gloria looked up at Roanna’s entrance, and her mouth drew into the familiar disapproving line. Grandmother took in Roanna’s wet hair and sighed but didn’t comment. Uncle Harlan gave her one of his insincere used-car-salesman smiles, but at least he never scolded her, so Roanna forgave him for having all the depth of a pie pan. Jessie, however, went straight on the attack.
“At least you could have taken the time to dry your hair,” she drawled. “Though I suppose we should all be grateful you showered and didn’t come to the table smelling like a horse.”
Roanna slid into her seat and fastened her gaze on her plate. She didn’t bother responding to Jessie’s malice. To do so would only provoke even more nastiness, and Aunt Gloria would seize the chance to put in her two cents’ worth. Roanna was used to Jessie’s zingers, but she wasn’t happy at all that Aunt Gloria and Uncle Harlan had moved into Davencourt, and she felt she would doubly resent anything Aunt Gloria said.
Tansy served the first course, a cold cucumber soup. Roanna hated cucumber soup and merely dabbled her spoon around in it, trying to sink the tiny green pieces of herb that floated on top. She did nibble on one of Tansy’s homemade poppy seed rolls and gladly relinquished her soup bowl when the next course, tuna-stuffed tomato, was served. She liked tuna-stuffed tomato. She devoted the first few minutes to painstakingly removing the bits of celery and onion from the tuna mixture, pushing the rejects into a small pile at the edge of her plate.
“Your manners are deplorable,” Aunt Gloria announced as she delicately forked up a bite of tuna. “For heaven’s sake, Roanna, you’re seventeen, plenty old enough to stop playing with your food like a two-year-old.”
Roanna’s scant appetite died, the familiar tension and nausea tightening her stomach, and she cast a resentful glance at Aunt Gloria.
“Oh, she always does that,” Jessie said airily. “She’s like a hog rooting around for the best pieces of slop.”
Just to show them she didn’t care, Roanna forced herself to swallow two bites of the tuna, washing them down with most of her glass of tea to make certain they didn�
�t lodge halfway.
She doubted it was tact on his part, but she was grateful anyway when Uncle Harlan began talking about the repairs needed on their car and weighing the advantages of buying a new one. If they could afford a new car, Roanna thought, they could certainly have afforded staying in their own house, then she wouldn’t have to put up with Aunt Gloria every day. Jessie mentioned that she would like a new car, too; she was bored with that boxy four-door Mercedes Webb had insisted on buying for her, when she’d told him at least a thousand times she wanted a sports car, something with style.
Roanna didn’t have a car. Jessie had gotten her first car when she was sixteen, but Roanna was a rotten driver, forever drifting off into daydreams, and Grandmother had stated that, in the interest of the safety of the citizens of Colbert County, it was best not to let Roanna out on the roads by herself. She hadn’t resented it all that much, because she would much rather ride than drive, but now one of her demon imps raised its head.
“I’d like to have a sports car, too,” she said, the first words she’d spoken since entering the dining room. Her eyes were round with innocence. “I’ve got my heart set on one of those Pontiac Grand Pricks.”
Aunt Gloria’s eyes rounded with horror, and her fork dropped into her plate with a clatter. Uncle Harlan choked on his tuna, then began laughing helplessly.
“Young lady!” Grandmother’s hand slammed against the table, making Roanna jump guiltily. Some people might think her mispronunciation of Grand Prix had been the result of ignorance, but Grandmother knew better. “Your behavior is inexcusable,” Grandmother said icily, her blue eyes snapping. “Leave this table. I’ll speak to you later.”
Roanna slipped from her chair, her cheeks red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she whispered and ran from the dining room but not fast enough to keep from hearing Jessie’s amused, malicious question:
“Do you think she’ll ever be civilized enough to eat with people?”
“I’d rather be with the horses,” Roanna muttered as she slammed out the front door. She knew she should go back upstairs and change into boots again, but she desperately needed to get back to the stables, where she never felt inadequate.
Loyal was eating his own lunch in his office, while he read one of the thirty horse care publications that he received each month. He caught sight of her through the window as she slipped inside the stable and shook his head in resignation. Either she hadn’t eaten anything, which wouldn’t surprise him, or she was in trouble again, which wouldn’t surprise him either. It was probably both. Poor Roanna was a square peg who stubbornly resisted all efforts to whittle down her corners so she would fit into the round hole, and never mind that most people happily whittled on their own corners. Burdened with almost constant disapproval, she merely hunkered down and resisted until the frustration grew too strong to be repressed, then struck out, usually in a way that only brought more disapproval. If she’d had even one-half of Miss Jessie’s meanness, she could have really fought back and forced everyone to accept her on her own terms. But Roanna didn’t have a mean bone in her body, which was probably why animals loved her so much. She was chock-full of mischief, though, and that only caused more trouble.
He watched as she drifted from stall to stall, trailing her fingers over the smooth wood. There was only one horse in the stable, Mrs. Davenport’s favorite mount, a gray gelding who had injured his right foreleg. Loyal was keeping him quiet today, with cold packs on the leg to ease the swelling. He heard Roanna’s crooning voice as she stroked the gelding’s face, and he smiled as the horse’s eyes almost closed with ecstasy. If her family gave her half the acceptance the horses did, he thought, she would stop fighting them at every turn and settle into the life into which she had been born.
Jessie drifted down to the stables after lunch and ordered one of the hands to saddle a horse for her. Roanna rolled her eyes at Jessie’s lady-of-the-manor airs; she always caught and saddled her own horse, and it wouldn’t hurt Jessie to do the same. To be honest, she never had any trouble catching a horse, but Jessie didn’t have that knack. It only showed how smart horses were, Roanna thought.
Jessie caught her expression out of the corner of her eye and turned a cool, malicious look on her cousin. “Grandmother’s furious with you. It was important to her that Aunt Gloria be made to feel welcome, and instead you went into your hick act.” She paused ever so slightly and let her gaze drift over Roanna. “If it is an act.” Having delivered that zinger, so subtly sharp that it slid between Roanna’s ribs with barely a twinge, she smiled faintly and walked away, leaving only the miasma of her expensive perfume behind.
“Hateful witch,” Roanna muttered, waving her hand to disperse the too-heavy scent while she stared resentfully at her cousin’s slim, elegant back. It wasn’t fair that Jessie should be so beautiful, know how to get along in public so perfectly, be Grandmother’s favorite, and have Webb, too. It just wasn’t fair.
Roanna wasn’t the only one feeling resentful. Jessie seethed with it as she rode away from Davencourt. Damn Webb! She wished she’d never married him, even though it was what she’d set her sights on from girlhood, what everyone had taken for granted would happen. And Webb had taken it more for granted than anyone else, but then he’d always been so damn cocksure of himself that sometimes she nearly died with the urge to slap him. That she never had was due to two things: one, she hadn’t wanted to do anything that would hurt her chances of ruling supreme at Davencourt when Grandmother finally died; and two, she had the uneasy suspicion that Webb wouldn’t be a gentleman about it. No, it was more than a suspicion. He might pull the wool over everyone else’s eyes, but she knew what a ruthless bastard he was.
She had been a fool to marry him. Surely she could have gotten Grandmother to change her will and leave Davencourt to her instead of to Webb. After all, she was a Davenport, not Webb. It should have been hers by right. Instead she’d had to marry that damn tyrant, and she’d made a big mistake in doing so. Chagrined, she had to admit that she’d overestimated her own charms and her ability to influence him. She thought she’d been so smart, refusing to sleep with him before marriage; she’d liked the idea of keeping him frustrated, liked the image of him panting after her like a dog after a bitch in heat. It had never been quite that way, but she’d cherished the image anyway. Instead, she’d been infuriated to learn that, rather than suffering because he couldn’t have her, the bastard had simply been sleeping with other women—while he insisted she be faithful to him!
Well, she’d shown him. He was an even bigger fool than she was if he really believed she’d kept herself “pure” for him all those years while he was out screwing those bitches he met in college and at work. She knew better than to mess up her own playground, but whenever she could get away for a day or a weekend, she quickly found some lucky guy to take the edge off, so to speak. Attracting men was disgustingly easy—just give them a whiff and they came running. She’d done it the first time at the age of sixteen and had immediately discovered a delicious source of power over men. Oh, she’d had to do some pretending when she and Webb had finally married, whimpering and actually squeezing out a tear or two so he’d think his big bad pecker was actually hurting her poor little virginal pussy, but inside she’d been gloating that he’d been so easy to fool.
She’d also been gloating because now she was finally going to have the power in their relationship. After years of having to sweetly kowtow to him, she’d thought she had him where she wanted him. It was humiliating to remember how she’d thought he’d be more easily handled once they were married and she had him in bed with her every night. God knows, most men thought with their peckers. All of her discreet liaisons over the years had told her that she wore them out, that they couldn’t keep up with her, but they’d all said it with big smiles. Jessie took pride in her ability to screw a man into limp exhaustion. She’d had it all planned: screw Webb’s brains out every night, and he’d be putty in her hands during the day.
But it ha
dn’t worked out that way at all. Her cheeks burned with humiliation as she guided her horse across a shallow creek, taking care that the water didn’t splash on her shiny boots. For one thing, more often than not she was the one who was left exhausted. Webb could go at it for hours, his eyes remaining cool and watchful no matter how she panted and jerked her hips and worked him over, as if he knew she regarded it as a competition and was damned if he’d let her win. It hadn’t taken her long to learn that he could outlast her, and she would be the one left lying exhausted on the twisted sheets, her loins throbbing painfully from such hard use. And no matter how hot the sex, no matter how she sucked or stroked or did anything else, once it was finished and Webb was out of bed, he went about his business as if nothing had happened, and she could just make the best of it. Well, damned if she would!
Her biggest weapon, sex, had proven to be ineffective against him, and she wanted to scream at the injustice of it. He treated her as if she were a disobedient child rather than an adult, and his wife. He was nicer to that brat, Roanna, than he was to her. She was sick and tired of being left at home every day while he roamed all over the nation, for God’s sake. He said it was business, but she was certain that at least half of his “urgent” trips were conceived at the last moment just to prevent her from doing something fun. Just last month he’d had to fly to Chicago the morning before they were supposed to go on vacation in the Bahamas. And then there was the trip to New York last week. He’d been gone for three days. She’d begged to go with him, dying with excitement at the thought of the shops and theaters and restaurants, but he’d said he wouldn’t have time for her and left without her. Just like that. The arrogant bastard; he was probably screwing some silly little secretary and didn’t want his wife around to mess up his plans.
But she had her revenge. A smile broke across her face as she reined in the horse and spotted the man who was already lying stretched out on the blanket beneath the big tree, almost hidden in the secluded little cove. It was the most delicious revenge she could have imagined, made all the sweeter by her own uncontrolled response. It frightened her sometimes that she desired him so savagely. He was an animal, totally amoral, as ruthless in his way as Webb was, though without the cool, precise intellect.
