by Lind Howard
She wanted to raise and train horses.
When Lucinda died, the debt of gratitude that had been incurred when a terrified, grief-stricken seven-year-old had heard her grandmother say that she could come live with her would be paid. It was a debt of love, too, as strong as that of gratitude. It had kept her at her grandmother’s side, gradually becoming Lucinda’s legs and ears and eyes as her health grew fragile with age. But when Lucinda was gone, and Davencourt safely in Webb’s capable hands, Roanna would be free.
Free. The word whispered through her, as gossamer as a butterfly’s wing when it is newly emerged from the cocoon.
She could have her own home, something that was solely hers, and she would never again be dependent on anyone else for the roof over her head. Thanks to Lucinda’s training, she now understood investments and finances; she felt confident that she was capable of managing her own money, so that she would always be secure. She would raise her own horses, but that would only be a sideline. She would go into business for herself as a trainer; people would bring their horses to her for schooling. Even Loyal said that he’d never seen anyone better able to gentle a frightened or misused animal, or even one that was just plain cussed.
She could do it. She could make a go of it. And for the first time in her life, she would be living for herself.
The grandfather clock in the foyer gonged softly, the sound barely audible here at the back of the huge house. Startled, she glanced at her own clock and saw that it was supper time, and she still wasn’t dressed. The nap she had planned to take was impossible now with adrenaline still humming through her veins, so she might as well eat.
Hurriedly she went to her closet and took out the first outfit that came to hand, silk slacks and a matching sleeveless tunic. The pants would hide the scratches on her legs, and that was all she cared about. She knew how to choose flattering and appropriate clothes now, but had never learned to take pleasure in clothing.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said as she entered the dining room. Everyone was already seated; Brock and Corliss were the only ones absent, but then they seldom ate supper at home. Brock spent what time he could with his fiancée, and God only knew where Corliss spent her time.
“What time did you get home?” Webb asked. “I didn’t hear you come in.” His eyes were narrowed on her just the way he’d looked at her when she was a kid and he’d caught her trying to slip in unnoticed.
“About five-thirty, I think.” She hadn’t noted the exact time, because she had still been so upset. “I went straight upstairs to take a shower before supper.”
“The heat is so sticky, I have to shower twice a day,” Lanette agreed. “Greg’s company wanted to transfer him to Tampa. Can you imagine how much worse the humidity is down there? I simply couldn’t face it.”
Greg glanced briefly at his wife, then returned his attention to his plate. He was a tall, spare man who seldom spoke, wore his graying hair in a crew cut, and to Roanna’s knowledge did nothing for fun or relaxation. Greg went to work, came home with more work in his bulging briefcase, and spent the hours between supper and bedtime hunched over paperwork. So far as she knew, he was one of a horde of pencil pushers in middle management, but suddenly she realized that she didn’t really know what he did at work. Greg never talked about his job, never related funny stories about his co-workers. He was simply there, a dinghy dragged along in Lanette’s wake.
“A lateral transfer?” Webb asked, his cool green gaze flicking from Greg to Lanette and back again. “Or a promotion?”
“Promotion,” Greg said briefly.
“But it meant moving,” Lanette explained. “And the living expenses would be so much higher that we’d have been losing money on that so-called promotion. He turned it down, of course.”
Meaning she had flatly refused to move, Roanna thought as she methodically applied herself to the chore of eating. Living here at Davencourt, they had no housing expenses, and Lanette used the extra money to swan around in the best social circles. If they moved, they would then have to provide their own roof, and Lanette’s standard of living would suffer.
Greg should have gone and left Lanette to follow or not, Roanna thought. Like herself, he needed to break away from Davencourt and have a place of his own. Maybe Davencourt was too beautiful; it was more than just a house to the people who lived here, it was almost a being in and of itself. They wanted to possess it, and instead it possessed them, holding them captive with the knowledge that, after Davencourt, no other home could be as grand.
But she would break away, she promised herself. She had never thought she could possess Davencourt, so she wasn’t bound here by envy’s chains. Fear had held her here, and duty, and love. The first reason was already gone, and the remaining two would soon follow, and she would be free.
After supper, Webb said to Lucinda, “If you aren’t too tired, I want to talk to you about an investment I’ve been considering.”
“Of course,” she said, and they walked together to the dining room door.
Roanna remained at the table, her expression blank. She forked up one last bite of the strawberry shortcake Tansy had served for dessert, forcing herself to eat that one even though she wanted it no more than she had the ones preceding it.
Webb paused at the door and looked around, a slight frown pulling his dark brows together as if he’d just realized she wasn’t with them. “Aren’t you coming?”
Silently she got up and followed them, wondering if he’d really expected her to automatically assume she was included, or if she was an afterthought. Probably the latter; Webb had always been accustomed to discussing his business decisions with Lucinda, but for all things he’d said about wanting Roanna to continue with her present responsibilities, he didn’t think of her as having any authority.
He was right, she thought, ruthlessly facing the truth. She had no authority beyond what either he or Lucinda granted her, which wasn’t true authority. Either of them could pull her up short at any time, divest her of even the semblance of power.
They entered the study and took their accustomed seats: Webb at the desk that had so recently been hers, Roanna in one of the wing chairs, Lucinda on the sofa. Roanna felt jittery inside, as if everything had been jostled, switched around. The past couple of hours had been filled with a series of insights into her own character, nothing great and dramatic but nevertheless small explosions that left her feeling as if nothing was the same, and hadn’t even been as she had always perceived it.
Webb was talking, but for the first time in her life Roanna wasn’t hanging on his every word as if it came from the lips of God Almighty himself. She barely even heared him. Today she had faced down a brute, and realized that people liked her for herself. She had made a decision concerning the rest of her life. As a child she had been helpless to control her life, and for the past ten long years she had let life pass her by, withdrawing to a safe place where she couldn’t be hurt. But now she could control her life; she didn’t have to let things happen as other people dictated, she could set her own course, make her own rules. The feeling of power was both heady and frightening, but the excitement of it was undeniable.
“—a sizable investment on our part,” Webb was saying, “but Mayfield has always been reliable.”
Roanna’s interest suddenly focused, caught by the name Webb had just mentioned, and she remembered the gossip she had heard just that afternoon.
Lucinda nodded. “It sounds interesting, though of course—”
“No,” Roanna said.
Silence settled over the room, complete except for the muted ticking of the old mantel clock.
It was difficult to tell who was the most startled, Lucinda, Webb, or Roanna herself. She had sometimes thought Lucinda should rethink a decision, and quietly given her reasoning, but she had never openly, flatly disagreed. The no had just popped out. She hadn’t even couched it in let’s-think-it-over terms, but stated it definitely, firmly.
Lucinda sat back on the
sofa, blinking a little in surprise. Webb swiveled his chair a little so he was looking directly at Roanna and merely stared at her for a long moment that strained every nerve in her body. There was a strange glitter in his eyes, bright and hot. “Why?” he finally asked, his tone soft.
Roanna desperately wished that she’d kept her mouth shut. That impulsive no had been based on gossip she’d heard that afternoon at the music festival organizational meeting. What if Webb listened to her, then gave her the condescending smile of an adult listening to a child’s improbable but amusing scenario, and turned back to his discussion with Lucinda? The precious new sense of confidence would wither inside her
Lucinda had grown accustomed to listening to Roanna’s observations, but Roanna had always offered them as simply that, and left the final decision to her grandmother. Never before had she flatly said, “No.”
“Come on, Ro,” Webb coaxed. “You watch people, you notice things we don’t. What do you know about Mayfield?”
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “It’s just what I heard today. Mayfield desperately needs money. Naomi left him yesterday, and the word is she’s asking for a huge settlement, because she caught him in the laundry room with one of Amelia’s college friends who’s been visiting for a couple of weeks. Moreover, according to gossip, the hanky-panky has been going on since Christmas, and it appears that the college friend, who is all of nineteen, is four months pregnant.”
There was an oasis of silence, then Lucinda said, “As I remember, Amelia did have her friend over for the Easter holidays.”
Webb snorted, a grin widening his mouth. “Sounds as if Mayfield had his own personal arising, doesn’t it?”
“Webb! Don’t be blasphemous!” But for all her genuine shock at the comment, Lucinda’s sense of humor had a bawdy streak, and she fought a smile as she cast a quick, concerned glance at Roanna.
“Sorry,” Webb promptly apologized, though his eyes continued to sparkle. He had caught the look Lucinda gave Roanna, as if she were alarmed that Roanna should hear something off-color. It was an old-fashioned attitude, that a virgin, no matter what her age, should be shielded from sexual innuendo. That Lucinda still considered Roanna a virgin meant that there hadn’t been any romantic interests at all in Roanna’s life, even in college.
Lucinda had been absolutely correct, Webb thought, his heart beating fast as an image of that night in Nogales flashed through his mind. Roanna had been a virgin, until roughly one hour after she had walked up to him in that bar. It had taken him about that long to have her stripped, spread, and penetrated.
The memory shimmered through him like soft lightning, heating every nerve ending, making him ache. The feel of her soft, slender body beneath him had been … perfect. Her breasts, round and delicious and so delicately formed … perfect. The hot, tight sheathing of his cock … perfect. And the way her arms had wound so trustingly around his neck, the way her back had arched, the blind, exalted expression on her face as she came … God, it had been so perfect it left him breathless.
His dick was hard as a spike. He shifted uncomfortably in the chair, glad that he was sitting behind the desk. That’s what he got for letting himself think of that night, of the utter ecstasy of coming inside her. Which he had, he realized. Several times, in fact. And not once had he used a rubber.
He’d never before in his life been so careless, no matter how much he’d had to drink. The fine hairs stood up on his body as an almost electrical thrill ran through him. The thought of birth control hadn’t once entered his mind that night; with primal male instinct he had taken her time and again, imprinting himself on her flesh, and in the most primitive claiming he had spurted his semen into her. During those long hours, his body had taken control from his mind, not that his mind had been in top form anyway. The flesh had no conscience; with instincts formed over thousands of years, he had claimed her as his own and sought to forge an unbreakable bond by making her pregnant, so that their two selves would mingle into one.
It was an effort to keep his face impassive, not to leap up and grab her, demand to know if she carried his child. Hell, it hadn’t even been two weeks yet; how could she know?
“Webb?”
Lucinda’s voice intruded on his consciousness, and he wrested his thoughts from the shattering direction they had taken. Both Lucinda and Roanna were watching him. Roanna’s expression was as calm and remote as usual, but at that moment he was so acutely attuned to her that he thought he could see a hint of anxiety in her eyes. Did she expect him to dismiss what she’d said as mere gossip? Was she waiting so impassively for one more blow to her self-esteem?
He rubbed his chin as he regarded her. “What you’re saying is that Mayfield’s personal life is a mess, and you think he’s so desperate for money that he isn’t using good judgment.”
She held his gaze. “That’s right.”
“And you heard all this at your meeting today?”
Solemnly she nodded.
He grinned. “Then thank God for gossip. You’ve probably saved us from a big loss—Mayfield, too, come to that, because he needs our backing to swing the deal.”
Lucinda sniffed. “I doubt Burt Mayfield will feel very grateful, but his personal mess is his own fault.”
Roanna sat back, a little dizzy at the ease with which they had both accepted her analysis. Her emotions were so unsteady that she didn’t know how to act, what to do, so she sat quietly and did nothing. Occasionally she could feel Webb look at her, but she didn’t let herself meet his gaze. Her feelings were too close to the surface right now, her control too tenuous; she didn’t want to harass him and embarrass herself by staring at him with doglike devotion. The stress of the past few hours was taking its toll on her anyway; the adrenaline high had faded, and she was dreadfully tired. She didn’t know if she could sleep; in fact she was so tired that she was afraid she would sleep, because it was when she was most exhausted and finally fell into a deep sleep that the sleepwalking episodes occurred. But sleep or not, she very much wanted to lie down, just for a while.
Then suddenly Webb was beside her, his hand on her arm as he lifted her to her feet. “You’re so tired you’re wobbling in your chair,” he said in an abrupt tone. “Go on up to bed. Mayfield’s proposal was all we needed to discuss.”
Just that small touch was enough to make Roanna want to lean into him, rest against his strength, feel the heat and hardness of his body against her one more time. To keep from giving in to the impulse, she made herself move away from him. “I am tired,” she admitted quietly. “If you’re sure that’s all, I’ll go upstairs now.”
“That’s all,” Webb said, a frown pulling his eyebrows together.
Roanna murmured a good-night to Lucinda and left the room. Webb watched her go with narrowed eyes. She had pulled away from him. For the first time in his memory, Roanna had avoided his touch.
“Will she sleep?” he asked aloud, not looking at Lucinda.
“Probably not.” She sighed. “Not much, anyway. She seems … oh, I don’t know, a bit edgy. That’s the most she’s put herself forward in years. I’m glad you listened to her instead of just shrugging it off. I had to teach myself to pay attention to what she says. It’s just that she notices so much about people, because they do all the talking and she just listens. Roanna picks up on the little things.”
They chatted for a few minutes longer, then Lucinda carefully rose from the couch, proudly refusing to reveal the difficulty of the movement. “I’m a bit tired, too,” she said. “My days of dancing ’til dawn are over.”
“I never had any,” Webb replied wryly. “There was always work to be done.”
She paused, watching him with a troubled look. “Was it too much?” she asked suddenly. “You were so young when I gave Davencourt to you. You didn’t have time to just be a boy.”
“It was hard work,” he said, shrugging. “But it was what I wanted. I don’t regret it.” He had never regretted the work. He’d regretted a lot of o
ther things but never the sheer exhilaration of pushing himself, learning, accomplishing. He hadn’t done it just for Davencourt, he’d done it for himself, because he’d gotten off on the power and excitement of it. He’d been the golden boy, the crown prince, and he’d reveled in the role. He’d even married the princess, and what a disaster that had turned out to be. He couldn’t blame Lucinda for that even though she had happily promoted his and Jessie’s marriage. It was his own blind ambition that had led him willingly to the altar.
Lucinda patted his arm as she passed, and he watched her, too, as she left the room, noting the care with which she took each step. She was either in pain or far weaker than she wanted anyone to guess. Because she wouldn’t want anyone to fuss over her, he let her go without comment.
He sighed, the sound soft in the quiet of the room. Once this room had been his own domain, and bore the uncompromising signs of purely masculine use. Not much had been changed other than the addition of the computers and fax, because Davencourt wasn’t a house given to swift or dramatic changes. It aged subtly, with small and gradual differences. This room, however, now seemed softer, more feminine. The curtains were different, lighter in color, but it was more than that. The very scent of the room had changed, as if it had absorbed the inherent sweetness of female flesh, the perfumes and lotions Lucinda and Roanna had used. He could detect very plainly Lucinda’s Chanel; it was all she had worn in his entire memory. Roanna’s scent was lighter, sweeter, and was strongest when he was sitting at the desk.
The faint perfume lured him. He resumed his seat at the desk and shuffled through some papers but after a few minutes gave up the pretense and instead leaned back, frowning as his thoughts settled on Roanna.
She had never pulled away from him before. He couldn’t get that out of his mind. It disturbed him deep inside, as if he’d lost something precious. He’d sworn he wouldn’t take advantage of her; hell, he’d even felt a bit noble about it, because he’d been denying himself something he really wanted: her. But she was so damn remote, as if that night in Nogales had never happened, as if she hadn’t spent her childhood years tagging along at his heels and beaming worshipfully up at him.
