A Lady of the West (5 page)

Roper's lips twitched into a humorless little smile, and he gave her a brief nod, as if in recognition of her nerve. Still, it wasn't until he turned away that she felt herself released.

The Major rubbed his hand down her arm, accidentally letting his fingers touch her hip. Victoria started, but forced herself to smile at her new husband. It was just that she was so nervous, she told herself, and she didn't really know him. Once she had a chance to relax, everything would be all right.

“What did you think of your bedroom, girl? Right nice, ain't it?” The Major's tone was somehow leering, but he seemed anxious for her approval.

“It was lovely,” she replied, glad she could be honest. “I'm sure I'll be very comfortable. The chaise especially is a nice touch.”

He squeezed her hip again. This time, however, she was looking at him and saw the glitter in his dark eyes when he did so. Now she knew it wasn't accidental. Such a public caress shocked her, and the look in his eyes frightened her a little.

“Later,” he said with a wink, “you'll like the bedroom even more.”

She couldn't reply. The thought of the coming night was almost enough to paralyze her, if she let herself dwell on it. So she forced it from her mind and somehow got through the evening.

It was a strangely silent gathering, with only the Major talking and everyone else answering him in monosyllables. Emma, bless her, kept Celia close to her side. Victoria tried to smile at the appropriate times and contribute some polite conversation over the dinner Lola served, but she was too tense to do more than go through the motions of being a gracious hostess.

McLain kept touching her. Victoria noticed Garner
kept watching Celia. And Roper, whose eyes made her shiver, kept watching her, but now his expression was unreadable.

She wished desperately that she had never agreed to marry McLain. She thought hers was the most dismal wedding supper she'd ever attended, and felt a small spurt of amusement because she was the most dismal person attending it. The amusement quickly died, however, when McLain stroked her arm with the gloating possessiveness that made her feel sick. She felt as if he were flaunting her before the two other men.

For a moment her distress was so powerful that she had to look away, and found herself staring at Roper again. His cold eyes met hers, then flickered to McLain. When he looked back to her, she was mortified to see a faint understanding. That he should know she was dreading the night, and what McLain would do to her, was unbearable.

She went white, then red, then white again. She wanted to run from the table, and clenched her hands tightly together. She had never before had any idea that a man might be imagining her with her nightgown pulled up, but she was certain Roper was thinking just that. Every ounce of modesty she possessed was outraged.

The only thing to do, of course, was to pretend not to notice him. It was rather like closing one's eyes and pretending to be invisible, but it was better than nothing.

Roper watched the color build and recede in her face, and realized the cause; he even felt faint pity. She wasn't a cold and passionless doll, after all. She was frightened—justifiably so, though she couldn't know that. McLain had a reputation for being rough and hasty with women. Nor was he particular in his choices, though this time, it seemed, he'd gotten himself a lady. Bad luck for the lady.

Roper realized he didn't like the idea of McLain
rutting on her. It made him furious with himself, but there it was. McLain wouldn't appreciate her pale delicacy, nor would he take the time to give her pleasure. She was too fine for the bastard. She had guts. Damn few men had ever stared at him like that, challenging him with a look. People usually didn't want to look at his face, for some reason; they would only glance at him, and quickly look away. But this pale, slender woman had stood as steadfast as a rock and matched him look for look. She had acted as if she were a queen and he the lowest of her subjects. The thought of it caused a spurt of anger that surprised him. Roper seldom let himself feel any emotion, and he especially didn't want to feel any for McLain's wife.

But there it was. Anger. Respect. Desire. God, yes, desire. He shouldn't feel any of it, he couldn't afford to feel any of it. He'd have to do something about her, sooner or later, and he didn't need his mind clouded by all these unwanted thoughts and emotions. He couldn't let himself soften at all, not now.

Deliberately he looked at the little sister. She was undeniably lovely, and the expression in her dark blue eyes was both sweet and happy, though there was an elusive quality about her he didn't understand. Maybe she was simpleminded. Not stupid, just simple. She was just a beautiful child.

But looking for a distraction didn't help. He turned back to McLain's wife, and the images of hate rose up again in his mind, though he kept his face carefully blank. McLain, murdering his father. McLain, raping his mother and then putting a bullet in her brain. McLain, stealing the land that had been in his mother's family for over a hundred years. McLain, sending the young killer, Garnet, out to hunt down and kill two boys, and damn near succeeding. McLain, living in the cool, gracious house where Roper had been born, back when this whole valley had been called Sarratt's Kingdom.

Jacob Roper Sarratt had returned. He'd come to kill McLain and take back the valley. Until today, that was all he wanted.

Now he wanted McLain's wife, too.

Victoria sat propped against the pillows, clad in her long-sleeved, high-necked white nightgown. She was cold, deathly cold, all the way down to her bones, but she couldn't shiver. Her body felt heavy, incapable of even that tiny movement. Her heart was beating in a slow, ponderous rhythm that threatened to choke her.

Emma had wanted her to leave her hair down, but Victoria had insisted on braiding it as usual, explaining that the tangles were horrendous if she left it loose. The truth was, Victoria didn't want to look too attractive to the Major. It was a small defense, but one she felt would help her in spirit if not in fact.

The bedcurtains were drawn back and tied to the four posters. The room was illuminated by three candles set in the graceful silver candelabra on the dresser, and Victoria wondered why the room was lit with candles instead of an oil lamp, which gave off more light. There had been lamps downstairs. She would ask Carmita tomorrow.

Tonight, though, perhaps it was best that the room wasn't brightly lit. Perhaps she should even snuff the candles. She considered it, and was about to throw the covers back when the connecting door opened and the Major entered her room.

She froze. He was wearing a dark robe, but below the hem his legs were hairy and bare. His bull neck and thick shoulders looked even more odd in contrast to the spindly size of his calves.

But it was his face that most terrified her. He wore such an open expression of gloating anticipation that she wanted to die. Dear God, what was he going to do to her?

He walked to the side of the bed and removed his
robe, exposing a white nightshirt that came down to his knees.

“Well, girl, are you ready?” Again, his voice had that leering tone.

She managed to make an assenting noise, but it was a lie. She would never be ready.

“Lie down, then. Did you expect to do it sitting up?” He laughed.

She could barely move, but managed to shift her position so that she was lying flat on the mattress. He got into the bed beside her and leaned up on one elbow. Victoria's muscles tightened even more. He had brown eyes, she noticed. His heavy jaw was darkened by a shadow of beard, and she could smell a sweet, cloying scent about him. Lying this close to him, she was overwhelmed by the mixture of cologne and sweat, so much so that she had to struggle to prevent herself from gagging. Desperately she tried to remind herself that he seemed clean enough, he was just a rather heavy man and naturally sweated.

He bent and pressed his mouth to hers. She could feel the clammy sweat on his upper lip. Revolted, she tried to press her head deeper into the pillow to escape him.

Oddly, the kiss seemed to excite him. He began breathing faster, and his beefy hands jerked at her nightgown. Victoria clenched her fists and tried to prepare for the exposure. At least they were still under the sheet.

But when the nightgown was about her waist he kicked the thin sheet away and rose up on his knees. Victoria closed her eyes, so humiliated she could barely think. He was looking at her
there,
something she couldn't remember anyone ever doing before. It was shocking enough that he should see her bare legs, but for him actually to look at her triangle of hair was horrible.

The sound of his heavy breathing was the only noise
in the room. He put his hand on her bare leg and she jumped. “Feels good, does it?” he panted. “Just wait, there's more.”

She couldn't bear more. It couldn't get worse than this. He pulled her legs apart, and nausea churned her stomach. Dear God, he was actually looking between her legs. In all her nightmares she had never imagined this.

He shifted so that he was kneeling between her spread legs. She felt him touching her there, rubbing his fingers over her, and suddenly he pushed one thick finger into her. Her eyes flew open and she went rigid as pain tore through her body. She was dry, and his rough finger felt like sandpaper as it ripped apart the delicate tissues of her hymen. The pain and the idea of what he was doing were finally too much, and she dug her heels into the bed in taut rejection of that horrible penetration, her muscles locked.

With his other hand he had pulled up his nightshirt and was rubbing and pulling at an ugly, veined thing. Victoria looked at him in horror as she suddenly realized what he was going to do. She hadn't thought she could get any suffer, but she could feel her muscles pulling even tighter, her body going as rigid as a board. He was cursing for some reason as the ugly little sausage rolled limply in his hand.

Abruptly he let himself down and pushed it against her, and Victoria gagged.

McLain barely noticed her stiffness. It was what he expected; she was a
lady,
not a whore like Angelina. It was his own unresponsive flesh that held his attention, infuriating him. Dammit, he'd never had this trouble before! Despite his wound, he'd always been able to hump any woman he could get beneath him. But now his organ remained flaccid, no matter how vigorously he pulled at it. Frantically he pushed it against her, hoping that the feel of her would get him hard. He grew more panicked and furious with every passing second as nothing happened.

And then he realized she was lying frozen beneath him, just like that Sarratt bitch Elena had done. The demon that had tormented him for twenty years, that lurked inside him always waiting for a chance to leap out, smiled evilly. Once again out of the recesses of his mind came the hellish memory of pulling out of Elena and the shining knife abruptly slashing at him. He remembered the terror, the sick helplessness he'd felt with his pants around his knees as he rolled on the floor, trying to escape that darting knife. And once again he felt the sharp pain and horror of steel cutting into him.

He jerked away from Victoria, cursing and limp. Furious, humiliated, but above all else lost again in that remembered horror, he left the bed and stamped into his own room, slamming the door behind him.

For a long time Victoria lay as he had left her, with her nightgown up around her waist and her body rigid. The only sound she could hear was her own rough, sobbing breaths. When she did move, it was to shove her fist against her mouth to stifle the hysterical sounds that welled in her throat.

She couldn't bear it. If this was what being married entailed, she simply couldn't bear it. The wrenching loss of modesty, the pain … how could any woman ever endure this? She felt shattered by the intrusion into her body, and terrified because she knew he hadn't finished it, though she didn't know why. She only knew he had been trying to put that—thing—into her as he had put his finger. She had never dreamed her very body would be penetrated, never dreamed such things were possible or that men's bodies were so different from women's.

Slowly, her movements stiff and jerky, she slid from the bed. She wanted to wash and she had to blow out the candles. She wanted to hide in the dark and pretend this had never happened, but she knew she couldn't. Her hands were shaking as she wet a soft flannel in the cool water and drew her nightgown up
again. She pressed the wet cloth between her legs to soothe the ache and was startled to find it came away stained with blood.

She stood with her head bowed for a long time, trembling. If this was what her life was to be like, she must somehow find the strength to endure it. For Emma and Celia, she had to endure it. For her parents. This was the sort of bargain women had made for centuries, and she would find the strength to keep her end of it.

Knowing that she was only one of many was little comfort, because she was appallingly alone. She couldn't retreat and say, “No, I don't like this, I'm going home.” She couldn't run to Emma and sob out her fears like a child. There wasn't even the security of her home, of familiar rooms and streets, familiar people. This huge, elegantly simple hacienda, so alien from her home in Augusta, was where she would live for the rest of her life. She hoped that in time it would become home. But now she knew she had no hope at all that she would ever become accustomed to the Major.

At length she blew out the candles and felt her way across the dark room, to crawl between the sheets and lie for long hours, shivering and trying to muster her courage. She did eventually find some measure of control. If it wasn't courage, perhaps it would do.

She got up early, having only dozed fitfully, and dressed in one of the simple skirts and shirtwaist blouses she had brought. After pinning up her braids, she slipped quietly from the room. She didn't want to wake the Major. She hoped to find Carmita in the kitchen. Victoria had an urgent question that had been tormenting her all night, and Carmita would know the answer. It would be difficult to voice such a question, but she was learning that difficult didn't mean impossible.