A Lady of the West (45 page)

“Your situation is different. You have family—”

“Angelina doesn't. She has no one.” She lifted her fingers to his lips, the first time she had touched him voluntarily outside of bed since the day she had told him she was pregnant. The light touch seared him all the way to his soul, and he trembled. He caught her hand and turned her palm against his cheek, cold and beard-rough.

“Shall I send Emma to help?” he asked in a hoarse voice. He could barely speak.

“No.” Victoria's smile was wry. “She isn't married. It wouldn't do at all. But perhaps—if Lola will come. Ask, but don't order her. It should be her decision.”

He let her go back inside the dingy little room with its coppery odor of hot, fresh blood and wished that she had just a little less the lady of the manor's ingrained sense of responsibility.

Lola did come, along with the news that she had prepared a light meal for them and left it in the kitchen; she would stay while they ate. Carmita took herself off for a hasty meal, but Victoria didn't feel that she could endure food right then. She was tired, and her stomach was a little queasy.

Angelina had been lying with her eyes closed for over an hour. She didn't open them now, but she said in a surprisingly strong voice, “You might as well eat. I would if I could.”

“I'm not hungry,” Victoria replied, sponging the
woman's face. The time between contractions was short. For a while they had been almost constant, but nothing had happened and now they were spaced a bit further apart.

It was the last time Angelina spoke. Close to midnight she was delivered of a fat little girl with a crop of thick black curls like her mother's and the cord wrapped around her blue neck. Victoria wrapped the small body in a towel, her heart breaking.

They couldn't stem the flow of blood and Angelina was too weak to fight. She was unconscious and never knew that her daughter had died while trying to be born. A few hours later she too died.

Carmita and Lola took charge of cleaning the bodies for burial and refused to allow Victoria to help. She was sent back to the house, her body weighed down with weariness. Her own child was merrily kicking her ribs, letting her know that it was doing well.

To her surprise, Jake was sitting in the kitchen hunched over a cup of coffee that was no longer steaming. He looked up when she entered.

“They both died.” Victoria's voice was colorless.

Jake got up and held her in his arms. As he carried her to their room, she clutched his shirt and wept, her tears hot against his shoulder.

Neither life nor nature paused. Work on the ranch went on, and Victoria's girth continued to increase. Though she knew she would get much larger before it was finished, her shifting center of gravity made her feel constantly off-balance. Stroking her belly now during the baby's more acrobatic movements, she could discern a foot from an elbow, a hand from a knee.

“Jesus,” Jake said one night, amazed at the force with which a tiny foot had thudded against his hand. “This feels like two wildcats in a sack fighting to get out.”

“Thank you, how reassuring.”

He grinned and continued stroking his hand lazily over her belly. “Do you think it could be two?”

“No. I've counted one head, two feet, two knees, two elbows, and two hands. In whatever position, there's only one baby.”

He was relieved. The thought of her in labor with one child was scary enough.

Late in January Celia filched an apple from the storeroom and carried it out to Rubio. It was a beautiful morning, cold and crisp. A few inches of snow covered the ground, but the sky was cloudless. Her blood was singing through her veins; perhaps, just perhaps, Luis would be able to join her in her secret place in the loft. It was harder to find privacy now that winter kept the men close to the house. When spring came, she thought, she and Luis would ride out to a private place and spend the entire day making love.

Rubio was prancing around in the largest corral, snorting and shaking his head as he enjoyed his exercise. Dual trails of steam blew from his wide-open nostrils. He cavorted like a colt, and his red hide gleamed like polished mahogany in the bright sun.

Celia climbed on the fence, content just to watch him. He was seldom playful, so she didn't try to coax him to her to take the apple. In time he would work out his kinks, then he would come over to her for his treat. It had been weeks since he had tried to snap at her and he no longer shied when she patted his sleek, muscular neck.

He was beautiful, she thought, beautiful in much the same way that Luis was. They were both magnificent animals, dangerous and simple in their instincts.

Luis. Celia shivered. Just the forming of his name in her mind made her go soft and warm inside, the way she felt when they were making love. Her breasts tingled, and she thought of his mouth sucking at them.
Luis.

Her grip on the apple loosened and it fell to the ground. She knelt and reached for it through the fence, but it was a good foot beyond her fingertips. Rubio was on the far side of the corral, his proud head lifted high. She was safe enough, she thought, and climbed over the fence.

Even inside the house they heard the piercing screams of an enraged horse. There were shouts and the sound of men running. There was another scream, only one, but this one was different. It went through Victoria's heart.

She ran. Emma tried to catch her. “Victoria, no!” Emma had a hard grip on her arm, but Victoria thrust her aside with violent strength. She didn't notice her unwieldy body as her feet flew over the snow.

“Celia!” she screamed. There was no answer.

In the corral a knot of men on horseback had thrown several ropes over Rubio's head and were fighting him to a standstill. Jake was one of the men. He dismounted and ran to a small crumpled heap on the ground. As he went down on one knee, he saw Victoria flying toward them, her face a white mask.

“Ben, grab her!” he yelled.

Ben ran, intercepting her before she could reach the corral. He held her by wrapping his arms around her from behind, locking them under her breasts. She kicked and heaved, but his iron strength held her.

“Let me go!” she shrieked, trying to claw his face. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Celia.
Celia!”

Jake shifted his body so that he was between Victoria and Celia, but she could see the blue of her shawl, matted now with mud. The tan of her skirt. The white tumble of petticoats. A small shoe, lying by itself in the snow. A silky blond lock, stirring in the wind. And a lot of red. Celia hadn't been wearing anything red.

“Get a blanket,” Jake called sharply over his shoulder, and someone ran to do his bidding.

Victoria twisted, still trying to tear herself free. Ben was talking to her, trying to calm her down, but his words didn't make any sense. Emma was standing rooted to their left, her hands pressed over her mouth as if to hold her own screams inside. Her eyes were black in her colorless face.

The blanket was brought and Jake wrapped it around the small bundle. Luis rode up and a stark look tightened his lean face. Without a word he swung down and climbed through the fence.

As Jake started to lift Celia, Luis said, “I'll take her.” His voice was tight. “You see to your woman and I'll see to mine.”

Jake gave him a sharp look, seeing what was etched in Luis's eyes. He looked back down at the small, still girl and touched her bloody cheek with gentle fingers. Then Jake left Celia to the man who had loved her, and walked to Victoria.

She was no longer fighting Ben, but stood motionless in his grip with her eyes the only spot of color in her face. She didn't even have a shawl.

Ben released her and she stood alone, her body rigid. She searched Jake's eyes for any sign of hope and found none. Still, she had to ask, had to hear it said. “Is she alive?”

Jake wanted to sweep her up and carry her inside, have her warm and cosseted in bed before he told her what he had to tell her, but she was waiting, holding herself tight inside, and he knew she wouldn't leave until she knew.

“No,” he said.

Victoria swayed and he reached for her, but in the next instant she drew herself up straight, her chin high. “Bring her inside, please,” she said in a brittle but controlled voice, as if she would shatter if she let her control slip at all. “She'll need … she'll need washing.”

Luis carried Celia inside, his face rigid as the wind
blew her hair over his arm and teased his cheek with it. Victoria and Emma were behind him, their shoulders back despite their sudden haggardness. Jake and Ben followed, both of them watching the slender, unbending spines ahead. Jake wanted to take Victoria in his arms and give her what comfort he could, but held back. Comfort now would soften her, and she needed all the strength she could muster.

Carmita and Lola were sobbing softly into their aprons, while Juana had her hand stuffed into her mouth. “We'll need water, please,” Victoria said softly as she directed Luis upstairs.

He placed Celia on her bed and knelt beside it, slowly wrapping a bright tendril of hair around his finger. The blanket covered her face, but her hair was free. “I love you,” he said to the motionless girl, but there was no answer, and his heart was dying inside him.

Victoria put her hand on his shoulder. She hadn't known, but now she realized that she should have guessed. Celia had changed in the past months, since meeting Luis. “She loved you, too. You made her happy.”

He swallowed and carried her hair to his face. It still smelled like Celia. “We were lovers,” he said thickly. “It never felt wrong.”

“It wasn't wrong.” It went against everything they had ever been taught, but it wasn't wrong. Victoria was struck by how much their lives had changed, how much
she
had changed, since coming to this wild land. When she had first stepped down on territory soil, her life had been ruled by what society designated as proper or improper, but propriety no longer mattered to her when measured against love.

Love had changed Celia from a child into a woman. She had been content, no longer running from flower to flower as if in search of enough beauty and happiness to satisfy her need for it. She had found it in Luis.

Still sobbing, Carmita brought the water, but as she put it down she said. “I will wash the señorita, if you like.”

“Thank you, but Emma and I will do it,” Victoria said gently. It was the last thing they would be able to do for Celia.

Jake came up and took Luis away with him. Ben was overseeing the building of a coffin and having a new grave dug. Gently Victoria and Emma cut away Celia's torn clothing and began washing the mud and blood from her pale body. Rubio's sharp hooves had opened numerous deep cuts, but they were mostly on her back; she must have cowered with her arms over her head in a futile effort to protect herself. The back of her skull was flat and soft where the killing blow had landed, but her face was unmarked except for a small scrape on her forehead. They washed her hair and brushed it dry. Her eyes were closed like a child's in sleep, her long lashes resting on marble-white cheeks. Looking at Celia lying on the bed as they dressed her in her favorite clothes, Victoria thought that she looked as though she would wake if only they shook her, but the essence of Celia was gone.

Victoria didn't sleep that night. Jake insisted that she go to bed, and she did, but lay in his arms with her eyes open and burning. She had cried, but the tears hadn't brought a sense of release and now they wouldn't come at all. The pain clenched at her heart, sharp and unending. She had never been able to imagine life without Celia. Her sister had been as bright as the sun, and without her everything now had altered, become darker.

Her baby moved, and Victoria touched it. “She was looking forward to the baby so much. Now she'll never see it.”

Jake hadn't slept either. He was too aware of Victoria's suffering, and his own sense of loss was acute. There would be no more conversations about
riding astride or determining the sex of kittens, no more small shocks every time she opened her mouth, no more searches for items she had left in bizarre places.

He held Victoria close; he hadn't released her all night long and didn't intend to. “If it's a girl, would you like to name her Celia?”

Victoria's voice almost cracked. “I couldn't. Not yet.”

An hour later she said, “She looked pretty, didn't she?”

“Like an angel.”

“We'll have to take care of her kitten.”

Dawn was a miracle of colors, gold and red and pink streaking across a lightening blue sky. Celia would have been entranced. Victoria looked at the sky and thought of all the dawns that would be less appreciated now, without Celia there to watch them. She got up and dressed. She had no black dresses for mourning, but out here it didn't seem as important as it had in Augusta. Grief was in her heart, not her clothes.

She twisted her hair into a careless knot, and Jake fastened her dress for her. She looked out the window again and said, “I want that horse destroyed.”

Jake knew the need for revenge, knew how it could burn and fester. His hands tightened on her shoulders. “He's a dumb animal, Victoria. We had warned her time and again to be careful around him.”

“He's a killer. He trampled one of the Mexican hands after you'd left that time, did you know? He should have been shot then.”

The plans Jake had made for Rubio's get would never come to pass if he put the stallion down. Sophie was with foal, but he'd planned on buying other mares good enough to mate with the stallion. He wanted to produce a whole line of big, strong, fast horses. His heart ached, but destroying the animal wouldn't bring Celia back, wouldn't accomplish anything except Rubio's death and with it his outstanding blend of
speed and strength. Victoria had been irrational about the stallion from the beginning, so Jake didn't expect her to make a rational decision now.