Historical Cowboy Romance Two Book Box Set - Mail Order Brides (24 page)

“So what is there to do about him?” Violet
asked.

“Shoot him like a mad dog,” Jake declared.
“Get rid of him, and don’t ever let him back inside your house as
long as he lives. That’s all there is to do with a man like
Cornell.”

“But you don’t even know him,” Violet pointed
out. “You’ve never even laid eyes on him. What you’re saying is
just as bad as what he said about you.”

“There’s one difference,” Jake replied. “I’m
not the one threatening people for even associating with him. I’m
not threatening to throw three lovely young ladies out into the
street for having supper with him.”

Violet glanced around the table again. No one
except Jake would look at her, and she couldn’t stand to hold his
gaze any longer. He saw too much of her innermost self, the part of
her no one saw—not even Chuck. “This is all too much for me,” she
whimpered.

Jack turned back to Rose. “If you think about
it a little bit, you’ll realize that sending him away, and keeping
this place for ourselves and our families, is the kindest thing we
can do for him. What surprises me is that he isn’t smart enough to
realize that. You would think a man of his talents and intelligence
would see which side his bread is buttered on. Instead, he’s too
stubborn and malicious to play second fiddle to your
husband’s—whoever they might be. He’s too old and set in his ways,
I guess. He’ll cut off his nose to spite his face.”

Violet heard the clock chime in the back
parlor. She turned to Chuck. “We should go out for our walk before
it gets too late.”

Chuck nodded, and the other two couples
passed communications silently to each other through their eyes.
Without agreeing on it, all three couples rose from the table and
drifted apart.

Chuck and Violet meandered out of the dining
room and back to the front door. Just outside the dining room,
Chuck took her hand again, and her heart soared at the thought of
walking out alone with him into the night world.

They turned the corner into the front hall
and ran face first into Cornell.

“Oh, Cornell!” Violet exclaimed. “I didn’t
know you were here.”

“Where are you going at this hour, Violet?”
Cornell rumbled.

“We were just going out for a walk in the
moonlight,” Violet explained. “By the way, I don’t think you’ve had
the pleasure of meeting my fiancé. This is Chuck Ahern. And this is
Cornell Pollard, my guardian.”

Chuck put his hand out. “How do you do?”

Cornell glared at the hand and at Chuck. “I
don’t care to make your acquaintance, Mr. Ahern. I suppose Violet
told you that already that I disapprove of your presence here.”

“Yeah,” Chuck replied. “She told me.”

“Violet,” Cornell continued. “As your uncle
and guardian, I’m ordering you to go back upstairs to your room.
Mr. Ahern, if you can’t leave Rocking Horse Ranch immediately, I’ll
thank you to go back to the Fort House and stay there until you can
leave. You aren’t welcome here.”

“You’re in no position to order anyone to do
anything,” Violet snapped. “You’ve had your way with me and my
sisters all these years, and you’ll never order me to do anything
again. Do you hear me? You are the one who should go back to the
Bird House until you learn to speak civilly to us. This is our
house, not yours.”

“I think you misunderstand the situation,
Violet,” Cornell replied. “I will be the one who decides who comes
and who goes in this house, and I will also be the one who
ultimately decides who you three young women marry. That is my
right and my responsibility as your guardian. You may not value me
as such, but that is my role and I intend to fulfill it.”

Violet drew herself up to her full height.
“It may surprise you to learn, Cornell, that Jake Hamilton, Rose’s
fiancé, is a lawyer. He says you have no right to use our estate to
control our lives. Once we marry these men, the estate will pass to
them no matter what you say. You would do better to accustom
yourself to that fact.”

Cornell raised an eyebrow. “A lawyer, huh?
Well, I have a lawyer, too, and I’m sure he’s a much better one
than Jake Hamilton of God-knows-where.”

“San Antonio,” Chuck put in.

“Of San Antonio,” Cornell corrected himself.
“Now go upstairs, Violet, before I take you there myself.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Violet shot
back.

“You don’t think so?” Cornell stepped forward
and reached out to grab her arm.

Chuck matched him by taking a step of his own
forward, and he thrust his arm between Cornell and Violet to block
the older man’s move. “Don’t even think of laying a hand on the
lady, Mister. I don’t know you from Adam, but by God, as sure as
I’m standing here, you won’t lay a finger on her or I’ll make you
pay for it.”

Cornell fumed and raged. “Pay for it, will I?
I’ll show you!”

Violet never saw Cornell move so fast. She
never knew a man of his age could move so fast in the heat of
anger. Cornell flailed his arms to one side, knocking Chuck out of
the way. Chuck staggered backward and tripped over.

Violet screamed, “Chuck!” but it was too
late. Chuck pitched over and cracked his head against the corner of
the wall where it turned toward the dining room. He grunted once
and slumped into a pile on the floor. He didn’t move again.

With Chuck out of the way, Cornell made
another grab for Violet. His fingers locked around her arm, and he
yanked her toward the stairs at the end of the hall. She shrieked
as loud as she could in the hopes of rousing someone in another
part of the house. She didn’t know if any of her sisters or their
fiancés were still in the house, but even Rita would do. Let anyone
come who could help her fend off Cornell.

She tugged and wrenched at her arm, but he
held her as tight as a vice. Pulling at it hurt worse than his iron
grip, but her desperation to get free only made her fight harder.
He hauled her down the hall to the foot of the stairs, fighting all
the way. By the time they got there, cries of panic prevented her
from making any louder appeal for help.

Cornell put his foot on the first step to
drag her upstairs, but the finality of the move jolted Violet out
of her helplessness. She lashed out with her free arm and struck
Cornell as hard as she could across the side of the head.

He flinched in pain, but not enough to let go
of her arm. Seeing some effect from her efforts, she reared back
and struck again. Cornell roared in rage and brought his own arms
up to protect his head, but he was too late.

With one deafening bellow, he swung his arm
with the hand at the end balled into a fist and clubbed Violet to
the floor. The force sent her sprawling across the hall, and her
shoulder knocked against a plant stand near the dining room
door.

She stared up at the towering figure of
Cornell at the foot of the stairs, and she couldn’t even recognize
him. Where was the kindly uncle who managed all their affairs so
selflessly through their formative years? Where was the man she
revered as a second father or grandfather? Where was the guardian
she turned to for advice and protection?

Cornell never turned his hand against any of
the sisters before. Had he suffered some sort of apoplectic spell?
Had he suddenly taken to drink? Certainly the sisters’ mail-order
marriages couldn’t have driven him beyond his senses. But she
didn’t stop to try to reason with him or find out the cause of his
bizarre behavior.

Something snapped in Violet’s mind. Her
ability to rationalize deserted her, and her body took over her
brain. She never could understand afterward what impelled her to
act. Some force beyond her comprehension took control of her arms
and legs and exploded out of her in a whirlwind of motion.

Violet launched herself up off the floor with
a violent screech, her teeth bared and her fingernails flexed like
the claws of a wild cat. Her feet didn’t touch the floor as she
sailed across the hall and hit Cornell with all her weight.

She knocked him backward, and he landed on
his back on the incline of the stairs. But Violet didn’t stop
there. She leapt on top of his prostrate form, screaming her
insanity to the rafters. She seized Cornell by the tufts of hair on
the side of his head and slammed his head down again and again onto
the stair underneath him.

The first two times she delivered these
blows, Cornell grunted in pain. He stared up at the banshee on top
of him in terror, unable to rally his own hands to fight her off.
The third and fourth blows drew whimpers of agony from him. His
eyes rolled up in their sockets, and a wet dark patch stained the
edge of the stair under his head.

Violet couldn’t stop herself, even when she
saw him losing consciousness in her hands. She wanted to drop his
sweaty bleeding head and run from the house, but her body wouldn’t
stop slamming him down, lifting him up, and driving him down again.
Each blow sent a sickening shudder through her body. How could she
ever rid herself of this memory?

Cornell lapsed into hollow grunting
underneath her and probably would have died on those stairs had
Chuck not pulled Violet off him. Violet heard his voice in her ear,
but she couldn’t make out the words. Cornell’s hair tore out in her
clenched fists, but Chuck dragged her off him.

The same mindless shriek still poured out of
her mouth, and she kicked and scratched at Chuck’s hands and arms
to get back at Cornell, but he held her until they retreated to the
front door of the house.

Cornell rolled onto his side with a moan and
lurched up into a sitting position. He tried to speak, but only a
muffled growl of pain came out of his mouth. He leaned forward to
get his feet under him, but fell back down onto the stairs. “You’ll
pay for this,” he grumbled. “I’ll get you for this.”

“
We’ll
pay for this!” Violet
screeched. “
You’ll
pay for this! You had your chance to stay
on good terms with us and this is how you act! I would have stood
as your friend through life and death, and this is how you treat
me!”

“You’ll live to regret this,” Cornell rumbled
through gritted teeth. “I’ll see you thrown in jail for this, and
I’ll see your sweetheart there driven out of the territory.”

Violet went still except for her hard panting
breath. “You better pack your bags, Cornell. Come Friday morning,
you’ll never set foot in this house again, and if I never set eyes
on your face for the rest of my life, it will be too soon.”

She didn’t hear his answer. Chuck pulled her
the rest of the way out of the house and slammed the door behind
them.

The lamplight of the front hall vanished
behind them. The crisp night air and dreamy moonlight sealed the
breach between the inner world of the house and the outside world
of shadows and fantasies.

Violet gazed around her at the open range
awash in crystal moonlight. All of a sudden, Chuck’s hand enfolded
hers, and she opened her eyes as if recognizing for the first time
where she was. His touch, his presence, his essence grounded her
and cleared her thoughts of everything that just happened.

“Are you okay?” Chuck asked.

Violet shuddered. Finally, she nodded. “I’m
all right. How about you? You had a hard fall. I thought you might
be hurt.”

Chuck rubbed the back of his head. “I’m all
right. I blacked out for a minute, and when I opened my eyes, he
was trying to pull you up the stairs. I saw you hit him, and he
knocked you over. The next thing I knew, you were beating the
ever-loving tar outta that man.” He shook his head. “Boy howdy! I
wouldn’t want to be him right now.”

Violet stared down at her hands. Bloody hair
was still tangled around her fingers. “I’ve never done anything
like that before. You have to believe me. I don’t know what
happened to me. Something made me do it. I don’t know what.”

“You don’t have to explain,” Chuck told her.
“I saw what happened. If it comes to explaining anything to anyone,
we can both vouch for each other. He struck the first blow when he
knocked me down. And you hit him in fear for your own safety. You
attacked him only after he hit you back. It was all self
defense.”

“I don’t know what on earth made Cornell act
like that,” Violet remarked. “I’ve never seen him so crazed.”

Chuck cocked his head on one side. “No?
Hasn’t he ever done this sort of thing before?”

“Never!” Violet declared. “He’s always been
the most mild-mannered gentleman you could imagine. I just don’t
understand it.”

Chuck rubbed his chin, and the two of them
began walking away from the house, out onto the range. “I guess he
was a mild-mannered gentleman as long as he had his way around
here. As soon as you ladies started standing up to him, making your
own decisions and telling him where to stick it if he didn’t like
it, he lost control. Sounds to me like the mild-mannered gentleman
was just a mask he wore to hide his other side. This was the real
Cornell we saw tonight.”

“Don’t say that!” Violet cried. “I just can’t
believe it! I’ve loved him and looked up to him all my life. I
can’t believe this is the real Cornell.”

“How do you explain it, then?” Chuck
asked

Violet shook her head again. “I can’t explain
it. Maybe he suffered a psychotic episode, or an attack of brain
fever, or….or….I don’t know, or anything.”

Chuck gazed out over the pasture. “You might
be right. But it doesn’t change the fact that he attacked us.
Whatever the cause, he’s dangerous. We’ll have to look out for
ourselves and we have to warn the others about him. They could be
in danger from him, too, if he’s that worked up about us getting
married against his wishes.”

They reached the corner of the fence where
two pastures joined. Chuck leaned against the fence and turned his
face up to the moon.