The Lady and the Cowboy (2 page)

Now she was here though, she couldn’t help but wonder what
the hell she was doing in Texas? In this hot, humid, dusty and barren land. She felt a pang of longing for England, for its leafy green vistas, lush streams and rich countryside. She was all alone here with no house, no friends, little money and miles from civilisation.

Plus, s
he’d already had one run-in with a cowboy and she couldn't help but feel that it didn’t bode well for the future. Was her life here going to be full of disrespect and being ignored?

S
he had felt that way ever since she married Ivor, so she knew that she could endure it, she just didn’t want to. This was supposed to be her big chance to break free, not to end up in the same rut she was in at home.

“There, Earl’s on his way now, so it looks like you’re
stuck here,” Mamma said with some glee as she returned. “Now follow me, I’ll show you to your room.”

As
Ruth went out into the hallway again, she saw that two men were hauling her trunks up the stairs.

“That’s Raoul and Ben, they work on the farm,”
Mamma said as they walked. “Boys, this is Ruth.”

They both nodded at her and one (she wasn’t sure which) offered her a smile.
They made their way upstairs behind the cowboys and from the upper landing, five doors led off. The one she was led into was very different from anything she’d seen before.

The floor was polished wood, in the middle of which sat a large rug and on top of that
, sat a huge bed. So far, not so different, except that the walls were papered with a light, floral print, the curtains were a light yellow shade that would do little to keep the sun out and the bedspread was a cream shade, embroidered with dark beige thread.

Ruth was used to
bold colours and dark, wood panelled walls, so this light and airy room was like a breath of fresh air.

“It’s lovely,” she gasped.

Mamma smiled and went over to the other door that led from the room. Beside the door and affixed to the wall stood a floor length mirror.  She could see that thanks to her fall, her hair was in much more of a mess than she had anticipated, almost down in some places and she had dirt streaked across one cheek. No wonder the cowboy had laughed at her. Her dress also had dark stains from where she had landed in her fall and the rest appeared dusty.

“This is your closet,”
Mamma said, prompting Ruth to move her feet and look inside. “We don’t have running water inside yet but there’s a well just outside in the yard, just by the kitchen door and we keep hot water on the stove all day. I’ll bring you up a pitcher of cool water and a basin, so you can have a wash if you’d like.”

“Thank you.” Ruth smil
ed. She wanted nothing more than a wash in cool water right now. It had to be above 80 degrees today!

“All done.” In short order, the cowboys had brou
ght all six of her trunks up, as well as her bags. She didn’t have the heart to tell them that one trunk held spare tack and one contained Joe’s belongings.

“Thank you,” Ruth told them and
as she reached for her purse to tip them, saw that they disappeared without any fuss.

Ruth
took the remaining pins out of her hair then, since she was hot and the dress was filthy, undressed to her chemise and petticoats. She finally felt cool for the first time all day as she began to unpack her trunks.

She was
placing the few books she’d brought with her on to the dresser, when there was a tap on her door so she called for them to come in. Thankfully it was just Mrs Wakefield with the water jug and basin.

“Perhaps you had better ask 'who’s there' next time,”
Mamma joked, giving Ruth’s undergarments a pointed look.

“Oh!” Ruth cringed. “I’m so sorry. I was hot and the dress was dirty-“

“No need to explain, I’ve done the same myself on occasion. You’re hair looks real pretty down, by the way. I wish I had curls like that.”

“Thank you.” She was used to the women in her family forever lamenting that her hair was too wild and untamed, so it was nice to hear a compliment, even if she didn’t believe it.

“I’ll just get you some towels then I’ll leave you be. I’m normally found in or around the kitchen, if you need anything.”

“Thank you
so much, Mrs Wakefield, you really have been too kind.”

“Call me
Mamma and don’t talk rubbish. It’s selfishness on my part really; Cassy and I are usually surrounded by men all day long! It’ll be nice to have another woman about the place. If you’re not down before, I’ll give you a call at seven; we usually eat sometime around then.”

“Thank you.”

Before she finished unpacking, Ruth disrobed and had a wash, taking her time and enjoying the cool water. Finally she pulled a night gown on as it was loose, and finished her unpacking.

Washed and clean, by the time she was finished, her mood was a thousand times improved.
She smiled as she hung up her riding habit; she couldn’t wait for Joe and Angel to get here, it felt like weeks since she’d been on horseback and she missed it.

***

Sam Wakefield stayed out on the ranch for as long as he could that evening, unwilling to go home.

His men had told him
that his mother had invited Lady Adams to stay in his house, and that they had carried her things inside for her, which most certainly wasn’t what he paid them for but they couldn’t say no to Mamma.

H
e really wasn’t looking forward to spending his free time with that blasted woman; the condescending little witch.

She wasn’t even anything to look at, so no wonder her husband
had left her. Who would want to live with someone like that? Not him, that’s for damn sure.

Still, he couldn’t avoid the inevitable forever and
he finished rubbing Murphy down, then turned him out into the field for the night. With a heavy heart, he walked back to the house.

He could hear them talking as he approached but as he climbed the wooden steps to the front door, their talk died. His mother smiled at him from the parlour as he came in and he smiled back.

“Evening,
Mamma.”

“Come on in here and meet our guest,”
Mamma smiled at him. “Ruth, this is my son, Samuel.”

He
enjoyed her shocked expression and he couldn’t help but notice that she scrubbed up nicely. She’d washed and changed (but into a dress that was entirely inappropriate for a ranch) and neatened her hair, although he had to say he preferred her hair as it was earlier, wild and dishevelled from her fall. He could imagine that he had made her look like that, after taking her to bed.

“If you ladies will excuse me, I’ll go and wash up before dinner.” He smiled
at his mother as he turned his back; Ruth hadn’t managed to say a word.

“That’s your son?” he heard Ruth ask. He didn’t bother to hang around and hear the rest, whatever she said, he wasn’t interested in hearing it.

He quickly washed up, rinsed the dust from his hair, slicked it back with a comb and changed into clean clothes.

H
is mother and Ruth were still in the parlour when he returned and to his surprise, Ruth stood up as soon as he entered.

“Mr Wakefield, I owe you an apology for the way I spoke to you this afternoon. I was hot, tired and humiliated, but that’s no excuse. I’m terribly sorry.”

He thought he would enjoy hearing her crisp English accent grovelling like this but for some reason, it irritated him.

“Don’t worry about it, I'm just a dumb cowboy.” He walked past her
and through to the dining room opposite, sat at the table and poured himself a glass of lemonade from the pitcher his mother had left there.

Ruth
and Mamma followed him through, took their seats and an awkward silence settled over them.

“How was work?”
Mamma asked.

“Fine.”

“What about Zeus, is he still lame?”

“
Just a pulled muscle, he’s on stable rest for a few days.”

Silence reigned again and he could see his
mother glancing over at him, her disapproval of his cool behaviour was more than apparent. 

“Um, Mr Wakefield,” Ruth braved the silence. He turned to her
but didn’t reply. “I was wondering if we could set aside some time, to talk about my involvement here on the ranch.”

“We don’t need your involvement.”

“I’m sure you managed just fine without me, but I would like to be helpful if I can.”

“Lady, there’s nothing for you to do.”

His mother glared at him but Ruth had her head bowed, staring at her hands. “What, uh, what did Ivor do?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“But… well he must have done something,” she tried again.

Sam glared at her. “He was a
silent
partner.” He emphasised the word silent

Cassy served their meal
then, looking as uncomfortable with the tense silence as Ruth felt.

Ruth
took the hint and remained quiet all through dinner, only answering Mamma’s direct questions with the briefest of answers.

When they were finished
, his mother began to collect up the plates.

“Mr Wakefield, I’m sorry to keep bothering you but there is one more thing that I need to discuss with you. Well, ask you, really.”

He looked over at her, wondering where that fire he’d seen earlier had gone and truth be told, he felt like a bit of a louse for making this woman act so meekly around him.

“Go on.”

“Well my horse, Angel”

“What kind
of a name is Angel for a horse?”

“It’s just a pet name
, his stud name is Voodoo but I… well I didn’t think it suited him. He’s such a light grey, he’s almost pure white you see, which is very rare. Someone said it must have been magic, hence he got the name Voodoo, but I think it was more an act of God.”

“Is there a point to this little story?” he asked
, disliking how nervous she was acting around him. He realised being brisk to the point of rudeness wasn’t helping matters, but he wasn’t the bad guy in this situation and he wasn’t going to let her make him feel as if he was.

“The point, yes.  H
e’ll be arriving in a few weeks or so, and I wanted to make sure that it was all right to keep him here?”

For some unknown r
eason, he wanted to tell her no, that he didn’t want any horses called Angel on his ranch; this was a working ranch, not a place for English ladies to play at horseback riding.

“I’ll pay full livery,” she offered.

“No you won’t,” his mother interrupted. “We have plenty of free stalls and as half owner of this business, you’re entitled to have your horse stay here, isn’t she, Sam?”

“Of course,” he managed to say.
“Excuse me, I have to check on Zeus.” He got up and headed to the barn. Zeus didn’t need checking of course, he just needed an excuse to get out of there.

He didn’t und
erstand why he felt so irritated by her. First he hated her condescending attitude and the way she spoke down to him, now she was being all sweetness and light, wouldn’t say boo to a goose, and he didn’t like that either!

She was obviously fake
he decided, and that was why he didn’t like her. He wondered which persona was the real one.

Her hoity toity attitude wasn’t going to win her any friends here either, and her simpering was just going to annoy people. She was going to be nothing but a headache until she moved into town, which couldn’t come soon enough for Sam.

It didn’t help that her husband had basically stolen half of his farm and driven his brother away but regardless, the simple fact was he didn’t like her and he didn’t have to like her. His mother was free to like whoever she wanted, but that didn’t mean that he had to agree with her.

***

“Don’t worry about him, dear,” Mamma said once the rear door had slammed shut. “He’s always been all work and no play. He had to take this farm over when he was 14. His father died, you see, so it was up to him to keep the farm going.  We all helped, of course, but his brother was only 11 and his sister and I knew little about horses. It’s made him a little anti-social, I'm sorry to say.”

“All work and no play?” she
said.

“Something we’re all guilty of at times, I'm sure.”

“Not me,” Ruth sighed.

“Be honest, I'm sure you’ve been so preoccupied at times that you couldn’t think of anything else?”

“Maybe with horses but my mother placed strict limits on me. The truth is, I’ve spent the majority of my life being told what I can and can’t do.”

“What kind of things did you want to do?”
Mamma enquired.

“Lots of things.
Learn to ride a bicycle. Learn to swim. Read Nietzsche. Start a dressmaking business. Apparently they’re all either too unladylike, too difficult, or too middle class.”

“Riding a bicycle is middle class?”

“No, starting a business is middle class. They also wouldn’t let me learn to use a sewing machine because ‘ladies only sew by hand’. The aristocracy don’t work, Mrs Wakefield, and whilst we were middle class, my mother wanted more for us.”

She looked confused. “
Call me Mamma, please, and how do the aristocracy earn money if they don’t work?”

“It depends. If they have an
estate, they rent out land to farmers and the houses to farm workers, or if they’re in trade, they hire managers to oversee the day to day running but if they’re running short, their preferred way of making money is to marry it.”

“Is that why you married Ivor?” She asked.

Ruth gave a mirthless laugh. “More like, why he married me.”

“Your family is wealthy then?”

“Well, we were, and my brother still is, the oldest son inherited everything, as happens in aristocratic families and we women were expected to marry a title, hence why Mother insisted that Papa give us both a sizeable dowry, so we could attract the ‘right’ kind of person.”

“Did it work?”
Mamma leaned forward.

“That depends on
what you mean by ‘work’. My brother married a Baron’s daughter, so he didn’t actually get a title, just access to Society. My sister married a Baron, making her a Baroness and a Lady, but there’s no love between them. I suppose on the face of it, I was the most successful; Ivor was an Earl, or would have been once his father died. Until then he was called by his father’s lesser title, the Viscount of Marwich, making me a Viscountess. Had he lived, I would have become a Countess but… well, he’s been in America for the past four years, so you can judge for yourself how successful my marriage was.”

Mamma
nodded. “It seems to me that a large dowry would attract the wrong sort, no?”

“
In some cases, I suppose. I think the father is supposed to make sure that any interested parties are the ‘right sort’ but I had no thoughts of marriage until after my father died. My brother made it clear that he didn’t want to support me forever and my mother and sister pushed me out into Society. The rest is history, as they say.”

“So your brother didn’t check into Ivor then?”

“Not until it was too late, by which time he and my dowry were gone. Only after Ivor left did we uncover the debts, his gambling habit, his… women and that his father had cut him off for his wild behaviour. That’s why he went after me, because my father had left me twenty thousand for my dowry.”

Mamma
nodded sagely. “I was worrying about how to tell you that he’d built up a reputation as something of a blackleg, but it seems I don’t have to.”

“What’s a blackleg?”

“A swindler.”

“Sorry about that.” Ruth sighed.

“What he did isn’t you fault.”

Ruth wasn’t so sure. “Does he owe anyone money?”

“A few, but the Haskells let people dig through his possessions to recoup their losses, so I don’t think they’ll be coming after you.”

A sad
smile played at Ruth’s lips. “He was so wonderful in the beginning,” she said, sounding wistful. “He loved horses and supported my desire to ride, and he was so handsome and charming. When he looked at you, you felt as if you were the only two people in the whole world. He listened to me too, as if he really cared about what I had to say, like my father used to.” Her smile faded. “Sometimes, I still can’t believe that I was so thoroughly fooled.”

“Oh,
don’t be too hard on yourself, you weren’t the only one to fall for his silver tongue,” Mamma said; her voice had a dark undertone.

“What do you mean by that? Did he… did he charm a local girl? Get her in trouble, maybe?”

Mamma looked torn for a moment. “I’m sure you know what he got up to, charming stores into extending him lines of credit, that kind of thing.”

Ruth didn’t push. She knew better that to probe where she wasn’t wanted.

“Anyway, I’d better clear the rest of these dishes.”

“Oh, let me. You cooked, after all.”

“That’s very kind of you. Just leave them on the side for Cassy.”

“I don’t mind helping her.”

“And she’d be offended if you did. Just come join me in the parlour when you’re done.”

Ruth did as instructed but she was too distracted by her altercation with Mr Wakefield to converse easily, so she soon
headed to bed with a book, feeling like a total fool. What the hell was she doing out here, on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, when she didn’t even know how to wash dishes?

***

Sam spent the rest of the evening in the bunk house, playing cards with the ranch hands, unwilling to go back inside whilst he might run into Ruth. Although late, there was still a lamp burning when he got back and his mother was waiting up for him. He sat down with a sigh, ready to hear her out now that Ruth wasn’t around.

“Give her a chance?
” she asked.

“
Mamma, she wants to get involved! It was bad enough having Ivor own half of this place, but at least he only drained the profits, she actually wants to try and drive us into the ground with her meddling!”

“She’s not like him, Sam. Don’t judge her before you know her, that’s all I'm asking.”

Sam gave a weary sigh. “I’ll try to be nicer,” he assured her.

Mamma
smiled. “That’s all I ask. Now, I’d better head to bed, I don’t stay this beautiful without getting my beauty sleep.”

“G’night
Mamma,” he said as she bent to kiss his cheek. He remained up a little longer, pondering their new house guest and business partner.