Paxton Pride (14 page)

“What I have been trying to tell you for weeks, Father. That I do not love Alfred Whitaker, that I will not marry him, not for the advancement of your all-consuming financial empire nor Mother's precious social aspirations. And as far as
your
party is concerned, I left it. I was with Vance Paxton in the garden.”

The outburst surprised even her. But it was said now and so much the better. Barrett spoke not a word. He crossed around the desk and stood before his daughter, staring intently into her eyes, his face blotched with fury, hands trembling uncontrollably. Without warning one hand lashed out and slapped her across the jaw and cheek. The impact spun her around, knocked her against the globe in the corner and sent her reeling into the bookcase. She staggered wildly trying to regain her balance and managed to whirl around facing him in expectation of another attack. The violent movement was so sudden her gown fell open as she crouched like a devil at bay, her breath hissing from between clenched teeth, her eyes blazing.

Barrett glared at her, panting with fury. “Slut!”

“Slut!?” Karen spit back. Her voice was low, barely audible in the heavy silence. “Is that how you see your daughter? As a slut?” The two faced each other in timeless attitudes of belligerence until Karen straightened herself, stood regally, boldly before him, her gown falling away to her sides to reveal her naked body, the perfect breasts rising and falling slowly, the thick light brown patch of pubic hair exposed between finely sculpted thighs. “Do I look like a
slut
to you?”

It had been a long time since Barrett had seen his daughter naked. Not since she was a little sandy-haired tomboy swimming in a New Hampshire stream. But this was no little girl. His eyes raked over her and he was unable to stop them. Karen watched her father's line of vision and made no attempt to cover herself. Contemptuously aware of the power her body could wield over a man, any man, even her father, she stood still as a statue blatantly displayed to he who should not look. Barrett, his momentum shattered, suddenly aware of his licentious reaction, staggered back, shocked by his obvious and less than fatherly interest in his daughter's body. He coughed drily and turned away, his face ashen. Karen slowly fastened the gown again. “I'm decent now. You may hit me again if you like.”

Barrett Hampton stood before the window, staring out at the scattered, white-bellied cumulus clouds. It would be a nice day, clear and warm. To the east, under the rising sun, Washington began its blighted sprawl, each year uglier and more pronounced in contrast to the still safe, still beautiful Georgetown. The unfinished skeleton of the monument for President Washington stood out in stark, geometric relief against the white clapboard sides of a cheap, soon-to-be-torn-down hotel. The government was full of damned fools who knew only how to waste funds better earmarked for trade and commerce. But all to no avail. A nation of monument builders. He scowled. Try and spend a monument, he told them. Try to pay your bills with a damnable monument. The nation was heading for a depression and all those idiots on Capitol Hill could find to do was siphon off funds for another monument. Deficit. A man can't run his house on a deficit. A business can't run on a deficit. A people can't run a nation on a deficit. The economy needed a boost, not another monument. New markets must be developed, new avenues of trade. This was the first year his corporate figures had dropped. His corporation … an empire he had built with his own two hands, with his own sweat and blood, scrambling, pushing, pulling with all the daring, knowledge and relentless ambition he could dredge up from the innermost corners of his soul.…

Too much was at stake. He had to expand or sink. The Whitakers' influence was now the key to expansion, especially in Europe. If Karen didn't marry Alfred, he, Barrett Hampton, would be labelled a fool, unable to control his family, therefore suspect in business. If the wedding were called off it would be a direct slap in Alfred Whitaker Sr.'s face and doors would consequently slam in Barrett Hampton's face. What might have been easy would become close to impossible. The marriage was vital. The two families must be joined. He felt the achievements of twenty years' dogged determination slipping uncontrollably away, floundering in spite of all effort. He was losing ground while his own daughter looked callously on, the lifeline in her hands and refusing to throw it. He mustered his forces to bring himself under control and brought as much parental inflection to his words as he could bring to bear. “Karen. I apologize for striking you. I know you are a woman who likes to feel she has a will of her own. Very well. I can understand that. But this is the real world, a world forged and run by men and women who see their duty, understand it quite clearly and hew to it no matter what may fall. You are a member of a considerably wealthy, powerful family, a woman destined to be a member of an even wealthier, more powerful family. As such, you have, as have I, an obligation not lightly dismissed. I do not resent you falling in love with this Paxton fellow. He is a handsome enough man, I suppose, and—as much as I hate saying so to my own daughter—undoubtedly considerably attractive physically. Such infatuations are more common than any of us wish to acknowledge. They are to be expected—permitted even—as long as you do not become emotionally involved, as long as you conduct such affairs at the correct time and absolutely discreetly.” He paused, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.

“But last night you did neither, and in the process embarrassed everyone concerned. I hope it is not too late. I am to meet with Alfred and his father at ten o'clock this morning. At that meeting I will tell them you were under great pressure from your mother and I, have been feeling ill—I will hint of female trouble and the moon, no doubt—and, as Retta lied to me last night, fell asleep in your dressing room. This afternoon, I trust and expect, you will meet with Alfred privately and apologize. You will do so graciously and sincerely. Once he has accepted your apology, and I have every reason to expect he will, you will make plans to be married at an early date. You
will
marry Alfred Randol Whitaker. Is that understood?”

Karen did not reply.

“Is that understood?” he repeated, turning to add the emphasis of his sternest countenance to the question that was more a command.

The room was empty. The door open, the hall outside was devoid of life. Listening intently he heard the faint echo of her footsteps in the hallway above. He strode to the bottom of the stairs and bellowed, “You
will
marry Alfred Whitaker.” Upstairs, a door slammed in belligerent punctuation to his fiery command.

To Vance's way of thinking, mid-morning meant eight o'clock. But he figured adding another couple of hours would be more like mid-morning for city folks. Still, just to be on the safe side, he arrived at nine, hobbled his horse at the edge of the creek below and walked to the blockhouse to spend whatever time need be dozing in the shadow of the wall covered with the thick stand of blackberries. Hidden from all but the birds and the countless insects, he bided his time patiently, confident she would appear.

It was almost eleven when he saw Karen's distant figure the length of the meadow away. She was running lightly, her radiant gold hair flowing loose behind her like spun sunshine, her white dress pressed against her legs to reveal the perfect form of which he was so enamored. Vance tensed imperceptibly, sensing the constriction of his heart and the renewed tingle of his flesh. He would remember this image of her always, come what may. Karen of the meadow. Karen of the flowering fields. Karen of the tall and wavering pale green and purple thistles, stirred by the wake of her passage.

She rounded the wall and within seconds was in his arms, the short hours of separation, so long for new lovers, finally ended. Vance held her tightly, thirstily kissing her until she winced in pain. His brows knotted in concern and anger. “You're hurt. What happened?”

“Father and I had our little talk early this morning. I'm afraid it got a trifle difficult, physically speaking.”

“That son of a.…”

“No, Vance,” she interrupted. “He's my father. He's upset and disappointed. He doesn't understand what's happening. He feels as if he's losing control and he can't function unless he controls all he considers his. His business, Mother … me. I'm afraid what I said came as quite a shock to him.”

“I should have been with you.” Karen could feel his muscles tense and bunch under the linen shirt. His large bony hand clenched into a fist which he smashed down on the top of the wall.

Karen covered his hand with hers, held it gently until the clenched muscles relaxed, then raised it slowly until the fingers touched the purple bruise. “That
is
silly,” she said with a conciliatory smile. “Physical retaliation would solve nothing. I hate to think what would have happened had you been there. No, it was better for me to face him alone. I understand him.”

“I don't understand this,” Vance said in reference to the bruise.

“The union of the Hamptons and the Whitakers is very important to my father. What I feel is unimportant. I'm merely a small piece in a large transaction. That I should have feelings is incomprehensible. That I should contradict his wishes is intolerable, and he … lost control of himself. He's never hit me before. Not even when I was a little girl. Of course, he wasn't around all that much. I feel sorry for him. And just a little afraid, but not very. He told me—bellowed at me, really—I was to stay in the house until he got home, so I had to wait until the carriage left before coming to meet you. I could hear Mother in her room. I think she was crying. I called to her but she wouldn't let me in.”

Vance led her into the shadows of the blockhouse ruins where they might be hidden from view. Karen embraced him again, coming to him eagerly. She marveled at the change in herself, how she had recoiled from his touch such a short time ago, how she was now so wantonly pleased when he pulled her close and held her. Love would be sudden, she had known, and yet she was breathless with the realization of how quickly she had succumbed to the heady emotion. She giggled beneath his lightly caressing lips as they traced a teasing path across her forehead, down her unbruised cheek and along her neck. She twisted around and leaned back against him, held his hands clasped around her waist. “Tell me about Texas.”

Vance chuckled aloud. “What would you like to know?”

“I don't know. Tell me everything.”

“Miss Hampton, you have a lot to learn. Didnt you know can't any one person tell you everything about Texas? It's too big. Why, Texas is so big it would take two hundred men talking for a hundred years each to tell you
every
thing there is to tell.”

Karen squirmed teasingly against him, intensely aware of the immediate effect of her movement as she felt his manhood stiffen and press against her bottom. “Braggart. Tell me
any
thing, then,” she said, looking up at him.

Vance's whole body tensed. “You're making it awful hard … to even talk,” he said between clenched teeth.

“I'm sorry,” she said contritely, moving from him and sitting on the grass, trying not to giggle again. “I won't do that again.”

“Well, I don't know as you shouldn't. Sort of enjoyed …”

“You said, sir,” Karen interrupted with mock authority, “you would tell me about Texas.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he answered ruefully. Karen watched intently as he pulled at the corners of his moustache, first the left and then the right. She noticed he always repeated the gesture when thinking of a suitable response. “Well,” he started, “from our ranch house, if you look to the north, you can see a line of low sandstone cliffs with a funny shape like a man lyin' on his back. Kind of purplish at sunset. Real pretty, too. We call them Sleeping Giant, from the Comanche. The Comanche believe the line of cliffs really is a giant. One of their gods. And one day he's gonna wake up and drive the whites out of Texas and stomp on all the forts and towns and anything else the whites built to mess up the land. Then there'll be a period of five years when life gets real good. The giant will lie back down again, but he'll only be dozing because the laughter of the people, the powwows and the drums will wake him up again and he'll decide it's time to dance the last war dance. He'll destroy everyone but the Comanche because they're the chosen people. Them he'll lead to his hogan where all the great chiefs from all the dim yesterdays feast and smoke their pipes.”

“That's wonderful,” Karen said, her eyes wide and dreamy with visions of savages and thunderous gods. “What do you see to the south?”

“The valley. And past that, nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nope. Nothing put prairie. Raw, lonely land with tall yellow grass waving in the breeze. Silent. Peaceful hillocks. A mesquite tree now and again. To the south it's mostly flat. Lots of wild flowers, though. Bluebonnets. Indian paintbrushes. Daisies. Cactus. Plenty of them.”

“Blue bonnets. Indian paint brushes. What nice names.”

“And to the west the land dries out. Gets rocky and mean. The farther west, the meaner it gets. The dirt turns red and sandy and it's hot. There's a mesa way off there. We call it the sit-a-spell mesa because it looks like a great big wide stool left there for someone to sit on and rest when they pass that way. And a stone needle pokes up at the sky a little bit away to the north. The sun sets right between them along about June and September. West is no place to pick flowers 'cept in the early spring when the cactus blooms, but it's a good place to find a thought or two. I ride it sometimes just to be alone, but it doesn't pay to go there often. The whole area is sacred to the Comanche.

“Now the east is different. What we call hill country. Actually the hill country sort of peters out there. Low rolling hills, lots of mesquite and oaks. Cottonwoods and gums. There's more water there it's greener. Better farm land than ranch land. San Antonio is back east, too. You'll like San Antonio. People, music, dancing and fiestas—even our own brand of society for when you get lonely.