Paxton Pride (12 page)

He was eleven and his little boy's heart quivered and shook at the sight of Jo Leann. Jo-Jo attended the same prairie school house as he, and he could still remember her richly freckled face and flame-colored hair. After an initial period of pigtail-dunking and placing horny toads on her bonnet, the two grew quite close and even made plans as children will. She was an innocent, sweet child and would have grown to womanly beauty had she not died of cholera. Her oak board grave marker was inscribed “Jo Leann Parker. Age 13. Our little girl is with the Angels.” Vance could remember reading the words over and over again, wondering, trying to understand why they had to be there, trying and failing. Even as a man of thirty he could not understand.…

He passed his hand across his face, rubbing his eyes in the manner of one who has just awakened from a deep sleep. He looked about. Angie had led him into the dining room just as the little orchestra broke into a slow waltz. Several couples took to the floor around them. Angie was immediately surrounded by a trio of young dandies who vied for her attention. She giggled flirtatiously and countered their ribald remarks with more of her own. Vance backed off a few paces. Whatever spell the seductress had woven over him, it was over now, dissipated, no more binding than a dream from which one awakens and leaves behind in the clear morning light. Vance dodged a number of swaying, spinning dancers and crossed the dance floor, searching for Karen amid the throng. She wasn't dancing. She wasn't at the banquet table. He stood there, suddenly ravenously hungry but not caring what he ate. Piles of neatly stacked sandwiches, slabs of meat and bowls brimful of punch held his attention only long enough for him to quiet the growling in the pit of his stomach. And still no Karen. He wandered from the table.

He found Alfred standing in the center of a large group of congressmen and holding forth on some legal point or other, vehemently disputing each of his colleagues' opinions, basking in the light of their approval. Vance, his face wrapped in a puzzled frown, turned away from the self-impressed knot of men and surveyed the entire room. She wasn't there. Had she been, he would have found her. There was no way she could help but stand out in the middle of such a crowd of bland faces. The frown was displaced by a look of determination. He would search the house. And he would find her. Ignoring the reactions of the dancers he bumped into, unaware even of their existence and totally indifferent to their irritated grumbling, he started for the first open door he saw.

Karen walked the length of the garden and crossed the spring-fed pond on a line of stepping stones. She paused beneath a wisteria arbor to breathe the silent, fragrant air and clear her muddled thoughts. A laugh broke through the night air to break her concentration and she moved yet farther away from the noisome party until the empty stillness of the garden reduced the sounds to a barely audible undercurrent. Without realizing it she had come to the final border of lilac trees separating the garden from the meadow, across which lay the ruins of the old blockhouse and crumbled Duelling Wall. In the night the pinks and lavender blooms of lilac were mere dark patches against the limbs. Those that bloomed white turned silver in the pale light of the sliver of moon left to the sky. The sky itself was as clear as a city sky could be in spring, crowded with stars that disappeared near the horizon where the glow of man-made lights overwhelmed them.

Everything had gone wrong. Karen felt tired. So tired. There were just too many people, too many mouths, too many faces, too much to do in too little time. She hadn't been able to convince Barrett she didn't want to go through with the wedding, hadn't been able to make him listen to her when she tried to talk to him. Her mother was even more difficult. Committed body and soul to a social coup, she worked from dawn to midnight, making herself unavailable most of the time, chattering incessant inanities the few moments they did manage together and never imagining for a moment—because it never occurred to her to imagine—Karen could possibly be anything less than ecstatic. Alfred had been totally impossible. His goal achieved, all timidity fled. The Alfred she was used to seeing at work as a politician replaced the bumbling, awkward schoolboy who courted her. This … obnoxious Alfred was so busy strutting about feeling smug and complacent, spent so much time acting as if he were already married, she hadn't even seen him except in the presence of two or three others. There was no possible way to discuss postponing a wedding under those circumstances.

All the noise, all the fuss, all the lonesomeness in the midst of all the people left Karen confused and disoriented. A pawn in a game she didn't want to play but had to play because she was in the game by breeding, birth and custom. Only Retta would listen to her, but Retta didn't count. Beyond the confusion was a further factor of shock. Karen couldn't quite bring herself to believe she would soon belong to Alfred, belong to him alone, be his to do with as he pleased. If only she loved him, she thought over and over again. But no. She had tried but couldn't. And she would consequently wed and bed and gradually grow chilled and contemptuous, ambitious and frustrated like her mother. Perhaps even become another Angie Leighton, weaving spells to capture man after man with the promise of illicit sexual titillation with the wife of a powerful man, wantonly reaping a harvest of lust and deceit, and forever and forever unfulfilled.

She stared out across the moonlit meadow. If she looked long enough she could make out the blockhouse against the darker outline of trees beyond. She thought back on that moment less than two weeks ago, relived each breathless, daring second. So long ago, so many ages past. The pressure of his lips. The naughty eager way her body responded to his touch.
That's what love should be like … love?
…
Oh, my
…
no
!… The thought struck her like a thunderbolt. Her heart was suddenly full, nearly bursting with excitement beyond bounds. Surely she didn't … couldn't … be in love with him? Not him. Why, she wasn't even … wasn't anything like the people who.… Her hands went to her face, fingers white-tipped against her temples to press the notion away. But it was useless to try. Tears welled, crested and ran scalding down her cheeks.

“Karen.”

She spun about, stifling a scream. He stood in the open, legs slightly apart, tall and wide in the dim light. His hat was held in his left hand and a slight breeze stirred the shock of brown hair, blew it back away from his moonlit, sculptured face.

“I've been looking for you everywhere.” His voice was soft and rich with resonant strength, softer for the slight accent, a slight twang reminiscent of sultry nights under open skies. He seemed so less frightening to her now, but she trembled all the same as he walked toward her. His hand reached out and touched her cheek tentatively, tenderly.
Almost as if he can't believe it either
.

Suddenly she was in his arms. His kisses traced a searing path along her neck and his body pressed hungrily against hers. Their lips unerringly sought each other's as Vance and Karen lost themselves in the love which had waited so long it had to explode when finally realized and admitted. Vance lifted her off her feet and held her in his arms. She buried her face in his neck, clung to him tightly as the man she had searched for all her life carried her a few steps past the top of a small hillock which promised to block their view of the house. He sank to his knees and laid her gently on the grass, easing down beside her, his lips once again seeking, finding, provocatively enticing. The heady scent of lilac mingled with that of clover from the meadow below them and the crushed grass underneath them.

“Karen … Karen.…” Her name floated in the nebulous void, an impression thought but not spoken.

Vance rose to his knees. “They're calling you. We'd better go back.”

“Karen … Karen.…”

“I thought it was you. Saying my name in your mind.”

Vance smiled gently. “Your father. And Alfred. They'll …”

“Please. I don't want to go back.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she nodded, more sure of herself than ever before in her life.

“They'll be worried.”

“Only for themselves. Not for me.”

Vance looked down at her, studied her flawless face and flashing emerald eyes lit with fires of a dare taken, a decision made, a love found.

“Mr. Paxton. I had thought a true Texan would be more bold,” Karen said, her voice pitched just above a whisper, gently mocking as she brushed, then touched more boldly his chin.

Vance grinned, sinking down again beside her. “Ma'am, when the situation calls for boldness, you'll find a Texan more than happy to oblige.”

Her fingers touched the amulet hanging at his neck. The gold glinted, like his eyes, in the moonlight. A tree and brambles. A singular configuration. “And so you find the Washington ladies scandalously willing?” she asked.

“There's only one Washington lady and she's in my arms right now. Too pretty for Washington.” He lay back, his arm under her back, holding her close. “A long time ago I can remember a story about a princess who lived in a castle in a deep forest. Because she was the most beautiful princess in the world, her father the King kept her there rather than let anyone see her. I never really believed she existed until I saw you that day in the Rotunda. Even then I found it hard to believe until I'd followed you all afternoon and finally got enough nerve to catch up with you there by the creek. The only time in my life a fairy tale came true.” His eyes searched for hers, found them and wondered at their beauty. “Now the princess is here with me, and I find that hard to believe.”

“Do you need convincing still”

“I don't know.”

Karen eagerly met his kiss, her arms clasped tight around him. Her breasts swelled, strained against their cruel confines. She felt his hands against the small of her back. One strayed up to her bodice, fumbled there and loosed the catches at the back. Her breath came in heated spasms. A moan began deep within her and slowly rose to her throat, caught there unvoiced as she felt her breasts freed from the bodice. His hand stroked one nipple until it rose taut. He lowered his head to this sentinel of her desire, his tongue sliding across and around it, his lips nibbling, teasing unbearably, driving her mad with frenzy. Part of her dress had been pushed aside and only a thin petticoat separated the smooth skin of her leg from the pressure of his manhood straining to be loose from its own constraint. She could feel it throbbing with a will of its own as he shifted his weight to bring the prisoned organ in closer contact with her thigh, then higher and higher, seeking its ultimate goal, held back by so little, touching her now through the light fabric where no man had touched her before.

A tide of sexual exultation swept over her, swept over them both, leading them toward an inevitable inundation of uncontrollable passion. She wanted to yield, wanted to strip the last vestiges of restraint from her mind and body and be carried away on the flood, yet she resisted. This was her father's garden. This was a man she hardly knew.
But I want to know him. I want to know everything about the man to whom I shall give my maidenhood
. And while she had not said these words aloud it was as if Vance understood, heard her thoughts and relented from leading her past a point both of them might regret. His kisses became more subdued, less arousing yet comforting and deliciously gentle. Vance understood how she felt. She knew it.
This is the way love has to be, each knowing the other's thoughts. He knows I want him as much as he wants me
.

“I can wait, Miss Hampton,” he said softly. “When it's the right time, both of us will know. And then there won't have to be any holding back. When I can have all of you, heart and mind and body. I can wait, my love.”

She drew his face to her lips, kissing him tenderly. His words echoed in the very fiber of her being. “My love, my love, my love.…”

Time passes. The merest fleeting second in continual progression miraculously becomes a moment, becomes an hour and then two. Such is the timelessness of love ever and anon. The world spins for itself, not for man nor woman. Distant and remote, the stars signal each other with a myriad dancing flames from across the stygian void, their secrets unshared with an audience that loves and weeps and lives beneath their fragile glow.

A sparkle against an infinity of shadow and vacuum. A song in the face of immortal quiet and hollow peace. A shifting yet immutable tale whispered on the breath of ages by uncountable numbers of hearts and minds.

Karen awoke abruptly. Warm and soothed, his shoulder her pillow, she had fallen asleep in Vance's arms. He was breathing quietly, also asleep she thought. His moustache tickled her cheek. Everything was so still.
This is happiness. Serenity and quietude
. But something had caused her to wake so suddenly. She listened, heard nothing, sighed aloud. Whatever had bothered her certainly wasn't there now. And what possible threat could exist within the tranquil borders of her father's garden? The world was indeed as it should be. The grounds were still and peaceful, the house dark and quiet. Karen bolted upright. “Oh, my! Vance!”

The Texan had not been asleep, but rather lying as quietly as possible in order not to disturb her. Still, her outburst brought him almost to his feet. “What is it?”

“Oh, Vance, the party's over. Papa will be furious. And Alfred … oh … everyone. What shall we do?”

“Well, I guess we'd better start by getting you home. I imagine they'll be worried.”

Karen scrambled to her feet, awkwardly hooked the catches on the back of her bodice and brushed the twigs and lilac blossoms from her gown. “Worried, but not for me. For themselves. I wonder what happened. If Alfred announced … but surely not without me there. He would have been too embarrassed. He must have been … after bragging to all his friends. Oh, God, he'll kill me!”