Liz Ireland (19 page)

“Did he recognize me yesterday?”

She shook her head. “It’s not what you think.”

He let out an exasperated breath. “Then what’s wrong? You’re strung tight as fence wire.”

She clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to summon a little bravery to make her confession. “I’ve agreed to marry Barton Sealy,” she said in as calm a voice as she could muster.

Lang stared at her, thunderstruck. “You’ve what?”

She didn’t need to repeat herself; she could tell by his sickly pallor that he’d understood. “We’re going to have the ceremony tomorrow, in town.”

“Tomorrow!” Lang shouted, even more horrified than Rose Ellen had been.

But no one was more horrified than she herself was. And the worst part of all was having to put on a brave face for Lang. She couldn’t let him know that she was going to be wed against her will.

“Why?”

She lifted her chin. “I don’t want to be alone.” It was the most plausible-sounding lie she could come up with.

He blinked in surprise. “But you know what a deceptive man he is.”

She nodded. “I never said I was in love with him, but can you blame me for wanting to marry one of the town’s foremost citizens? He’ll be able to help me with the work here once you’re gone. And I’ve become so close to Lorna and Will, now I’ll get to be part of their family, and see their baby grow up…maybe have some of my own….” At the thought of having Barton Sealy’s babies, she crossed her arms to hold back a shudder of revulsion.

Lang pinned her with his dark stare until she couldn’t look at him a moment longer. “This is really what you want? Marriage to a man you don’t love?”

She closed her eyes and nodded slowly, wincing when Lang muttered a string of the angriest curses she’d ever heard from anyone’s lips.

“I thought better of you, Emma. I didn’t expect this kind of betrayal.”

Her eyes swept open in shock. “Betrayal!”

“I thought you had spine. I thought you were an independent-minded woman. But you’re weak.”

She thrust her chin forward. “How do you reckon that?”

“Because you’d marry a man for his good looks and his social standing in the community.”

“I’m just being practical.”

He sneered at her flimsy excuse. “I was proud of you yesterday, Emma, when you said you wanted to come away with me.”

She felt like screaming. “But you don’t want me!”

“Is that what you think?”

“It’s what you said,” she retorted.

“I only said that you’d be tired of a life on the run. But I didn’t intend for you to run off and marry the first man who asked you.”

“What did you expect, that I would live and die a spinster with only a few remembered kisses to last till I died?”

“Better that than marry someone you don’t love,” he replied in a heated voice. Then he stopped, looked out the window absently and combed a hand through his black unruly hair. “I’d hoped…” He let out a harsh breath that was almost a laugh. “Well, never mind that now!”

Emma felt a strange foreboding. “What had you hoped?”

He shook his head. When his head swung around and his dark gaze met hers, it was heartbreaking. “Just that you were different, that’s all. Less like somebody I knew once.”

Cold bands encircled her heart. “A woman?”

He nodded curtly. “Her name was Lucy. She was young, and pretty…and rich. I was in love with her—wanted to marry her, in fact.” He let out a bitter laugh. “I suppose you can guess what happened to that little romance.”

Emma shut her eyes. “She said no.”

“The most absolute no you could imagine.”

Emma shivered. She wanted to shake this Lucy person until her teeth fell out. “Because you had no money?”

The look of bitterness in his face provided the answer to her question. And now Lang thought she was like Lucy. But how? How could he possibly imagine that she would treat a man she cared for so callously? “Are you still in love with her?”

“No,” he replied tersely. “In fact, I got over her surprisingly quickly once I discovered how callous she was. But I’ve worked hard since then to make sure no woman could ever sneer at an offer I made again.”

She wanted to stomp her foot at the unfairness of it. If only he
would
make her an offer! She’d run away with him, she’d go to the farthest reaches of the earth, to China, or the moon if he wanted! She…

Couldn’t.

The realization shocked her. No matter what Lang said to her now, her hands were tied. She couldn’t run away with Lang, because she’d promised Barton that she would marry him tomorrow. Once it was discovered that she was missing, and Mr. Archibald, too, he would know that she’d run away with the outlaw. She had no doubt that in his wrath he would have a posse stampeding after them in nothing flat. So it didn’t matter if Lang took her into his arms and made her the sweetest promises her ears could hope to hear. She was stuck.

“You have to believe that I’m doing what I think best,” she said, her voice full of anguish. “I didn’t know it would hurt you.”

His lips twisted. “Lucy said something like that, too.”

“I’m not Lucy!” Emma exclaimed. “You didn’t make me an offer, Lang.”

“I wasn’t free to,” he replied. “But I hoped that if you cared for me, you would wait. I thought maybe once I got away and got settled, I could send for you.”

She sucked in a breath. “Why didn’t you say so?”

He shrugged. “It’s just a half-baked plan, Emma. It might never come off. I might get caught in the next county. Next week I could be swinging by a rope.”

“Don’t say that—don’t even think it!”

His eyes lit with a fire of hope, and he stepped forward so that their bodies were mere inches apart. “Do you mean that if everything worked out, you
would
join me?”

She could feel his body’s warmth, and the effect on her was like a swift river’s current pulling her forward, into his arms. He kissed her swiftly, harshly. She melted against him, losing herself in the feel of his lips against hers. A swirl of heat pooled deep within her. This was where she belonged, she thought dizzily, grabbing his shoulders and
pressing herself against him greedily. Lang’s arms around her, Lang’s lips against hers, Lang’s swelling need pressing into her abdomen…She should have been aghast that a man could be so familiar with her body, but his voracious, desperate kiss was matched measure for measure with her own need. She loved this man, she dreaded letting him go, and yet…

She had pledged to marry the sheriff. Lang’s freedom for hers. That was the bargain.

She dropped her head, sagging against him. “Oh, Lang!”

“Will you, Emma?” he asked, as if their conversation had never been interrupted. Except that his voice was sandpaper rough, more breathless. “Will you wait for me?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing hopelessly that this was all a bad dream. She would have given anything not to have to say the words that she had to speak now. But when she relented and looked into his expectant gaze, she knew there was no escaping hurting him, deceiving him. There was no way to explain what she had to do truthfully without putting his getaway in jeopardy.

“I…can’t.”

As the last word issued from her lips, his arms stiffened in response, and he held her away from him, a look of confusion and almost revulsion on his face. “You’re still going to marry Barton Sealy?”

She nodded weakly.

He gazed on her as if she were covered in filth, and for a moment she felt as if she were. She was tainted by the bargain she’d made with the sheriff, and she’d pay dearly for it. But it was unfair of Lang to look at her as if she were betraying him when she was only proceeding with her marriage to keep him from getting caught.

He let his arms drop and shook his head. “Is the Sealy name worth that much to you?”

She gritted her teeth. “No, but my word is. I’m promised to the sheriff.”

“And you don’t love him.”

“No.”

He nodded, obviously still mystified. She couldn’t blame him. He would probably spend the rest of his life thinking that she was just another woman who was no better than his old sweetheart Lucy, but there was nothing she could do about that. Her fate, inextricably linked with the sheriff’s, was sealed.

“I guess I’ll be leaving now,” Lang said curtly. He turned, shut the book he’d been reading and placed it on the bureau. Then he turned back to Emma with an expression that was a horrible mix of anger and disappointment. “I suppose it’s lucky you came back early, for at least two reasons. If we hadn’t had this conversation, I might have spent a long time pining after a married woman.”

The insinuation that he wouldn’t pine for her now cut her to the quick. Every day of her life she would pine for him, wish that she were married to him. “What’s the other reason?”

“I forgot to ask you about my gun. I assume I was armed when you found me?”

She nodded. “It’s in the barn,” she replied, shocked that she could even think clearly. It seemed such a long time since that blustery night he’d arrived, she’d forgotten all about hiding his gun. It was hard to believe there was a time when she’d been afraid of the man standing in front of her.

“I hid it in a stack of hay next to your horse’s stall.” Then she remembered. “My father’s rifle is in an old cabinet out there. Take that, too.”

His lips twitched up in a crooked half smile. “I only need what I rode in with.” He stared at her long and hard, as if expecting her to take back her words from before, but of course she couldn’t. The lopsided smile turned into a frown, and what spark was left in those dark eyes disappeared, maybe forever. He reached over to the bedpost, grabbed his hat and slammed it on his head. “Goodbye, Miss Emma.”

He turned on his heel and strolled out. Emma watched him go, still slightly limping, and felt almost disconnected from what was happening. The sounds of his boots retreating down the hall and falling on the steps didn’t really register in her mind as she stood frozen in place, inspecting the room that had never seemed so full of character until Lang had arrived. Just as it had never seemed quite so empty until now, when he was gone. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard voices speaking downstairs, and the front door shut afterward. But it wasn’t until five minutes later, when the hoofbeats sounded outside and then slowly disappeared, that the fog cleared and Lang’s leaving truly sank in. When she looked out the window to the darkening horizon and could no longer see him at all, that’s when her heart hit bottom.

That’s when she knew that her only future was as Mrs. Barton Sealy.

“N
ow I know how a prisoner feels when he faces the firing squad,” Emma muttered, inspecting herself in the full-length mirror in Rose Ellen’s room.

“Emma!” her sister exclaimed, causing Emma to spin in surprise. She hadn’t heard Rose Ellen come up the stairs. Regal even in her nightgown and wrapper, she looked at Emma in silent disapproval. “What a peculiar way to talk on your wedding day!” Her gaze swept her dress unhappily. “And what a terrible rag to wear!”

On
any
day, her sister’s tone seemed to indicate.

Emma glanced down sheepishly at the gray dress she had picked to celebrate the occasion of her marriage to Barton. It was appropriately somber for her mood. Apparently the garment didn’t meet Rose Ellen’s standards for wedding-day apparel, but she herself couldn’t work up the necessary enthusiasm to worry about what she wore. There was too much else on her mind.

Lang, oh, my love, where are you?

She shrugged to suppress the unhappiness that thoughts of Lang now brought her. Try as she might, she couldn’t force herself to be unselfishly happy that he’d been able to
escape. “This dress will just have to do,” she told Rose Ellen.

Rose Ellen’s eyes widened. “Oh, no! We can do much better.”

Emma prepared herself to endure her sister pawing through her closet full of browns and blacks, but Rose Ellen didn’t head for the door at all. Instead, she turned to the carved walnut wardrobe behind them and threw wide the double doors, revealing a colorful array of her own dresses. “There
must
be something here you can wear!”

Emma was shocked. Her sister had
never
offered to share clothes before; in Rose Ellen’s mind, having Emma traipsing around in her frocks would have been akin to casting her pearls before swine.

Wearing them now, under the pretense of her sham wedding, didn’t seem fitting for such a remarkable gesture. “Oh, no…I couldn’t, Rose Ellen.”

“Why not? It’s your wedding day, Emma. A woman wants to look her best…and believe me, gray is not your best.”

“But all your dresses are so bright, and it’s so soon after Daddy passed away.” Not to mention, her wedding was also a reason for mourning.

Her sister’s black brows rose. “Daddy would not want you looking like a dowd, Emma.”

She made one last attempt to head her sister off at the pass. “None of your dresses would fit me.”

“I’m bigger since Annalise.” Her sister’s gaze sized her up mercilessly. “And I’ll wager you’ve got a perfectly cute figure beneath all those frumpy things you always wear. And once we get a corset on you…”

Emma groaned and watched in helpless dread as her sister tossed out a cream silk dress with a tiny daisy print. The pressed material shone like satin. The sleeves puffed
frivolously, and the neckline dipped low enough that the whole of Midday, indeed the whole world, would have its first peek at her bosoms. Emma shook her head adamantly. “That’s much too…”

“Appealing?” Rose Ellen laughed. “Don’t worry so much. You’re allowed to be pretty one day out of your life!”

Without further ado, her sister whirled her around and at a furious speed began unbuttoning the gown Emma had on.

“Ouch! There’s no hurry.” Emma’s words were muffled as her sister yanked the dress up over her head in one quick motion.

Rose Ellen tossed the offending gray garment to the floor. “No hurry? Heavens, Emma, you’ve been dawdling up here so long, you’ll be late for your own wedding! Lorna’s been ready since sunrise. Even Annalise is more anxious to get going than you are.”

“Where’s William?”

“He went to town early to make sure everything was ready. You and Lorna are to go straight to Reverend Cathcart’s. The ceremony was supposed to start at noon, but I doubt you’ll make it now.”

Hearing the day’s itinerary made her queasy. People were waiting for her. The wedding would come off, with at least a dozen witnesses to her vows. There was truly no way out. Except for feeling sick to her stomach, she was completely numb with dread.

Rose Ellen slipped a corset on and laced the breath out of her. Then she threw the daisy dress over Emma’s head and set about doing up the scores of tiny pearl buttons in back. As a final gesture Rose Ellen slammed her best white straw hat decorated with clusters of pale blue grapes atop Emma’s head, and locked it mercilessly in place with one
of her sword-length hat pins. Then she stepped back and smiled like a master painter finishing a canvas. She clapped her hands with delight at the results.

“Emma, you’re beautiful!”

When Emma didn’t move, her sister spun her around to face the mirror. The image gaping back amazed her. The odd woman did almost look like a bride. The hat, of course, was perfectly silly—the oddest concoction that had ever sat on her head. But the dress wasn’t as terrible as she’d anticipated. The drop neck wasn’t quite as immodest as she had feared, nor were the puff sleeves as ridiculous as they had first appeared. The most worrisome aspect of the dress was the tightly cinched waist, which remained fitted around her hips, from which the full skirt flared out. She’d never seen her figure outlined so tightly, so revealingly. The fact that it would be Barton, not Lang, seeing her in this dress shot another wave of dread straight to her heart.

“You’re as pale as an egg!” Rose Ellen noted,
tsk
ing unhappily. She scanned the top of her bureau for something to remedy the problem of Emma’s complexion, but Emma put a stop to that.

“You’ve done enough, Rose Ellen. I’m just nervous.” She walked over to give her sister a peck on the cheek and before she knew it, found herself embraced in a weepy, heartfelt hug. Given how tightly Rose Ellen had laced her stays, the added pressure nearly squeezed the life out of her.

“Oh, Emma!” Rose Ellen cried tearfully. “I could never do enough. I’ve been so selfish. If I could ever do anything to make it up to you, I’d be so grateful!”

“Nonsense, Rose Ellen,” Emma said, attempting to pry herself away. Though she
did
wish there was something someone could do to save her from this marriage, she
doubted Rose Ellen would be the one to save her. “What have you done that’s so selfish?”

“I’ve wanted you to stay single so you’d go back to Galveston with me.” Rose Ellen turned her tear-streaked face up to her. “Of course, you’ll always be welcome at my house…though I know you’ll be too busy now with all that corn and those sick people to give much thought to me.”

Emma shook her head. Amazing. She would have thought the ability to find brightness anywhere would have left her when she heard Lang ride away, but Rose Ellen’s exquisite pouting still had the power to provoke her—this time to smiles. “I promise I’ll visit.” There would probably be many times when she would want to get away from her soon-to-be husband.

For a brief moment she considered telling Rose Ellen everything—that she wasn’t in love with Barton Sealy at all, that she was in love with Mr. Archibald who was really Lang Tupper, outlaw. She was tempted to explain about the blackmailing sheriff. But what could Rose Ellen do?

You’ve made your bed, now you’ll just have to lie in it
.

Emma flinched at the thought. Right this minute, she didn’t want to contemplate beds…or who would be sharing hers from here on out.

She kissed her sister again and then, before she burst into tears herself, quickly rushed downstairs. Lorna was waiting for her at the front door, and practically tugged her the rest of the way to the wagon.

“Emma, you look so pretty! I’m sure Barton will be bowled over when he sees you!”

Emma frowned and clambered onto the driver seat. The sheriff couldn’t care less what she looked like—he’d made that clear enough.

While Emma might have been dressed more for the part,
Lorna looked hands down more like a bride. Her best simple dress had been let out another inch around the waist and adorned with a silk sash, to which fragrant, early-blooming pink hyacinths from Emma’s garden were pinned. Hyacinths also adorned her bonnet. Her cheeks were flushed with happiness and anticipation, and her smile even brought an answering one out of Emma.

Annalise sat in the back dressed in her blue taffeta Sunday best. Her eyes flew open when she saw her aunt. “That’s Mama’s dress!” she warned, as if Emma might not have noticed.

“I have permission,” Emma assured her.

“And Mama’s
hat!
” The girl sized her up doubtfully, as if she couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of Rose Ellen parting with one of her best gowns. Emma could hardly believe it herself. Then the girl climbed up between jittery Lorna and Emma. “I wish Davy could be in the wedding, too!”

Emma twitched the reins to get the horses started. At the first jolt of the wagon, she felt sick with dread.

She tried to concentrate on her niece. It was a good sign that Annalise was asserting herself and making a friend. “Maybe Davy will be well in time to make it to your wedding, Annalise.”

Annalise balked at that idea. “But I won’t get married for another twenty-two years!”

Emma smiled at her, puzzled. “Why twenty-two?”

“Because then I’ll be twenty-eight. Mama always says I’m like you and that no man will want a serious girl.” She lifted her thin shoulders at the complexity of it all. “But you’re getting married now, so I guess once you’re twenty-eight it doesn’t matter.”

Emma shook her head, not knowing quite where to start to straighten out Annalise’s thinking. A quick glance revealed
that Lorna’s shoulders were quaking with silent laughter. Then, without preamble, a burst of mirth burst forth from her own lips, shocking Emma. She hadn’t thought she would ever laugh again. But now, when Lorna looked at her, pointed and howled, Emma laughed until she doubled over, even as the horses jogged along, speeding the wagon to her doom. She was half-hysterical from little sleep, worry and sorrow about Lang, and the idea of marrying a man she absolutely despised, but the one bright spot on the horizon was having someone to laugh with.

Two someones. Annalise started giggling, too, and looking at Emma, said, “Aunt Emma, you’re crying!”

Emma shook her head, and hugged her niece to her with one arm. “Haven’t you ever laughed till you cried?”

Annalise, sober again, shook her head. “I suppose you’re very relieved not to be an old maid anymore. Mama said that being an old maid’s worse than anything I could imagine. So I guess it must be worse even than being eaten by coyotes.” She frowned. “Is it, Aunt Emma?”

Try as she might, Emma could not avoid glancing over at Lorna, and the degeneration into helpless mirth began all over again.

Thus occupied, none of them noticed as the wagon approached the dip and curve in the road that would take them around a glade of trees and set them on the final stretch to Midday. Nor did they notice the masked figure lurking in the stand of trees—until it was too late.

The large dark man jumped out in front of them, startling the horses, which reared and wheeled, nearly overturning the wagon. As the wagon lurched to a stop, the bandit raised a revolver and Lorna screamed. Emma drew in a sharp breath at the same moment that her arms practically pinned Annalise protectively behind her.

A bandit?
There hadn’t been a bandit in Midday in years!

Nevertheless, the three women huddled close until the man, in a gravelly voice, ordered them to lie on the wagon floor.

At the sound of the voice, disguised as it was, Emma’s heart hammered wildly, and Lorna’s eyes widened in shock and recognition. “Mr. Archibald!”

It was him! Lang! Emma had to bite her lip to keep from bursting into a joyous smile. He’d come back for her! At least, she assumed that’s what this robbery was all about. He’d come back to prevent her from getting married. But now he might not get away.

The fool. The wonderful, handsome fool.

“Do as he says,” she told her companions, and proceeded to lie on the floor. To her shock, Lang put a bandanna around her mouth, gagging her. Afterward, he quickly tied Lorna’s hands loosely to the wagon, then freed one of the wagon horses from its traces.

“You come with me.” He grabbed Emma’s arm roughly and yanked her up to standing. Emma grunted in dismay at being manhandled this way. Didn’t he know she’d go with him gladly, readily, rather than marry the sheriff?

She’d never thought that she would scowl at Lang, but scowl she did as he boosted her up on his gray mare and took the bay from the wagon for himself. At least she got a saddle! She waited for him to return to unbind her gag. There was so much she had to say to him.

But he didn’t unbind her. Instead, Lang took a length of rope, tied one end around her saddle horn and the other around his wrist, then kicked his horse into a fast trot. Emma barely had time to cast a last glance back at her niece and Lorna still huddled in the bed of the wagon, blinking in shock and confusion, before she was whisked
away at a gallop, the wind whipping mercilessly at her daisy wedding dress. If it hadn’t been for the gag, she might have yelled like thunder at Lang for pointing guns and scaring them half to death and then hauling her off like a sack of seed corn.

Then again, she might have just whooped for joy.

“My sister has been kidnapped!”

Barton frowned as the townspeople crowded into Reverend Cathcart’s house for the wedding gasped in horror at Rose Ellen’s words. Or maybe some of them were simply gasping at Rose Ellen herself. He’d never seen the woman look such a sight! Her hair was unwashed and tied back in a frowsy knot, her dress was something she never would have worn to town normally, and her skin still had fading red spots on it. Not only that, she was holding the hand of her own child—whom most of the town hadn’t seen—and Davy Winters, a sharecropper’s boy. This was, simply, a Rose Ellen Midday had never seen—but then, she’d come to town bearing bizarre news.

“Emma was kidnapped by a man named Johann Archibald,” she said heatedly, “who just until yesterday was her boarder! My daughter recognized him.”

Lorna wept silently next to William. “I think he did it out of spite, because he was in love with her.”