This Fierce Splendor (15 page)

“You … need me?”

“I need you.”

Silver quickly took pains to mask any sign of the pleasure she felt. “Of course you need me. How could you take care of her by yourself? You are only a man, and a white man at that. I will come and no one will be cruel to her.” Her smile was fierce. “More than
once.” She turned away. “Now I will go for a walk and you will tell her she will not be alone when you take her back to town. Wipe the blood from your face. You must not frighten her.”

Dominic lifted his fingers to his lips and it came away with drops of blood. “Yes, ma’am.” He jerked the handkerchief out of his back pocket and dabbed at his split lip. “Anything else?”

“No, not at the moment.” She glanced back over her shoulder and smiled. Dominic inhaled sharply. At that moment she looked so much like Boyd, there could be no question of her parentage. Why couldn’t Da see the resemblance? Why did he deny the truth so stubbornly? “I’ll let you know if I wish anything else later. After all, white men have made good slaves for Apaches before this.”

He bowed slightly. “Yours to command.”

To his surprise a slight flush darkened her golden skin. “You needn’t mock me,” she said, her eyes blazing. “I know how you all feel.” She turned and walked away swiftly.

Dominic gazed after her, silently cursing Boyd and Da and himself. At that moment he had seen a glimpse of something hurt and vulnerable beneath the fierceness Silver wore about her like a cloak. In no logical way could he compare her to Elspeth, but for a fleeting instant she had reminded him of his little owl, struggling desperately to be brave against overwhelming odds.

His little owl, his Elspeth. How easily possessiveness crept into his thoughts when they concerned Elspeth. But he mustn’t think of her as belonging to him. He couldn’t let her become closer to him than she was already, any more than he could allow Patrick to come nearer. He had done enough to her without exposing her to more danger. Not that she would want to be close to him, he thought moodily. She would probably be on the stage and hightailing it out of Hell’s Bluff as soon as she could totter out of bed.

He drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. It was time to face her. He had been dreading the confrontation since Patrick had told him she had regained consciousness, but he would put it off no longer.

Elspeth’s eyes were closed when he walked into the cabin, but they opened at once to gaze up at him with startled alertness. She had been expecting him, she had known he would come, and yet her breath seemed to stop when she saw him. He was unsmiling and his familiar grim expression made her suddenly remember what she had been trying to forget since the moment she had awakened to see Silver sitting beside her.

The hot color flew to her cheeks and she tried to sit up. The tan blanket slipped and she grabbed at it frantically, abruptly conscious that she was completely unclothed beneath it.

“Have you no sense?” Dominic was across the room in three strides and dropping to his knees at her side. “Lie down before you fall down. You can stop looking at me like I’m some sort of ogre. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“No?” she whispered. “You’ve changed your mind then? About ravishing me, I mean.”

A flicker of pain softened his expression. “I’ve changed my mind. I won’t ask you to forgive me, I know there’s no forgiveness possible. But for God’s sake, don’t be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you. All you have to do is concentrate on getting well.”

The tension flowed out of her and she relaxed slowly. She nestled her cheek on the suede of his jacket that still served as her pillow. “I thought you would change your mind once you had gotten over your anger with me. You didn’t really want to bed me. I knew that.”

“Did you? Clever of you.” He was acutely conscious of the vibrant textures of her. Her long hair was flowing silk against the rough black suede of his coat, and the flesh of her shoulders gleamed with the
luminous transparency he remembered as if it had been carved into his memory with the blade of a tomahawk. Dear God, he was wanting her again. He hadn’t expected desire. He had felt nothing but aching regret and tenderness all the time he was caring for her, and yet now desire was upon him again, sharper and more alive than ever before. “I’m no threat to you. Patrick said I’d gone loco. I guess he was right.”

“Loco?”

“Horses sometimes eat loco weed and go berserk out here,” Dominic said. “He meant I went wild and started acting crazy.”

“I see. It’s a very colorful word, isn’t it? You have many words that—” She broke off as her throat tightened and the breath left her body. He was looking at her with that same expression she had seen as he lay beside her on the mat that night. His lips held a heavy sensuality and the hollowed lines of his cheeks were taut with hunger. Then he looked away and she could breathe again.

She must have been mistaken. He had said he no longer wanted her and there was no reason to disbelieve him. She knew very well she was not a woman a man would want to bed. “I should like to study the origin of some of your American words sometime. Perhaps when we come back from Kantalan I—”

“Kantalan.” His glance flew back to her face. “I would have thought you’d realize by now that I have no intention of taking you to Kantalan.” He slowly shook his head in wonder. “I can’t understand you. You were nearly raped, you fell into a gorge and almost split your head open. You’ve taken risks that no sane woman would take, and all because you want to find a lost city which probably no longer exists, if it ever did.”

“But it does exist,” she said softly. Her eyes grew misty and faraway. “I know it does. All my life I’ve dreamed of Kantalan and known that I would go there someday. From the first moment I heard my father speak of it, I knew I’d walk the streets of Kantalan and see the temples and—” She broke off as
he made a sharp exclamation. She frowned in puzzlement as she saw his expression held surprise and for a flickering moment even a touch of fear. Then it was quickly shuttered again and she thought she must have been mistaken. “Is there something wrong?”

“Walk the streets of Kantalan,” he repeated. “It’s a curious phrase. I suppose it just startled me. You act as if you can really see yourself there.”

“I can.” She raised herself on one elbow, her eyes bright with eagerness. “Sometimes I see it and know that I belong there. I realize it’s only my imagination, but there’s nothing wrong with dreaming, is there? Sometimes reality is more bearable if one comes to it from dreams. Haven’t you ever had a dream that was so strong, so clear, it was more real than the world around you?”

“Yes.” Killara. Many times he had dreamed he was home at Killara and woke to find only bitterness, ashes, and loneliness. “Yes, I’ve had dreams like that.”

“Then surely you realize how I feel about Kantalan. Won’t you take me there?”

Walk the streets of Kantalan. The phrase echoed in his memory and sent a chill rippling down his spine. Coincidence. It had to be the merest coincidence, but it still brought him the same sense of fear and dread he had known the night White Buffalo had told him the prophecy.

She was looking at him as if he could grant her the gift she had yearned for all the days of her life. He felt suddenly heady with power. He could give her this. He had hurt and shamed her, but he could make amends by giving her what she asked. He opened his lips to answer her and then closed them again without speaking. If White Buffalo’s prophecy held any truth, what she wanted could also bring her death and he would not risk it. Perhaps he believed more in that prophecy than he had thought, perhaps his skepticism regarding Kantalan had actually cloaked fear.

He stood up. “No, I won’t take you to Kantalan.”

Her eyes were suddenly blazing with excitement.
“But you
could
take me. You know where it is, don’t you?”

They had gone beyond subterfuge. He wouldn’t lie to her again. “I know where Kantalan is supposed to be. That doesn’t mean it’s actually there.” His lips tightened. “And I won’t take you. Sometimes it’s better for everyone not to have a dream realized.”

“But why—”

“No!” The word echoed on the air like a whistling lash of rawhide. “I’m taking you back to Hell’s Bluff tomorrow. We’ll start out at sunset, it will be cooler then so the trip will be easier for you. You’ll stay at the hotel until you’re fully recovered and then I’ll put you on the stage for Tucson. Can’t you see you don’t belong here? You almost
died
, dammit.”

“I may not belong here,” she whispered. Her eyes were enormous in her pale face. “But I do belong in Kantalan. Take me there.”

He muttered a curse beneath his breath. “Didn’t you listen to a word I said? You’re not going to Kantalan. You’re going home.” He turned on his heel and stomped toward the door. “Make up your mind to it. You’re definitely going home.”

As he uttered the last sentence the door opened to reveal Silver gazing at him with raised brows. “You’re sending someone else home?” she asked. “There will soon be no one left. I came to tell you Patrick has gone. He rode out a few minutes ago.”

Dominic experienced a sharp thrust of pain. It was what he had wanted, what was necessary, but that didn’t help relieve his sudden sense of terrible aloneness. “No, there will be no one left,” he repeated dully. He moved past Silver and stood in the doorway watching Patrick’s quickly retreating figure as the chestnut negotiated the twists of the winding trail that bordered the gorge. Then, as Patrick was lost to view beyond a curve in the trail, Dominic pulled his gaze away. “I picked up some soap and bandages in town. I’ll fetch them from my saddlebags.”

He shut the door behind him.

Elspeth gazed at the door, a pensive frown wrinkling
her brow. She had glimpsed pain and sadness and poignant regret at the moment Dominic had left the cabin. She had thought him hard, even ruthless, and never dreamed he could display softer emotions. Her gaze moved to Silver’s face. “Why did he send Patrick away?”

“He loves him and he fears for him,” Silver said matter-of-factly. “There are many men who would like to kill Dominic and he thinks they will also kill the ones he loves. The Delaneys are a very close family and they protect their own.” She came to Elspeth’s side. “I’m glad he brought fresh bandages. It was difficult to keep these clean.” She began to untie the white linen binding Elspeth’s head wound. “It will be easier once we’re in Hell’s Bluff.”

“The Delaneys,” Elspeth murmured. She was suddenly intensely curious about the family that had brought forth such wildly differing offspring as Dominic, Patrick, and Silver. “Tell me about them, Silver.”

“What do you wish to know?”

“Everything. I’d like to know everything.”

Silver began to bathe the cut on Elspeth’s head. “The old man, Shamus, and his wife Malvina, came here from Ireland in 1842. They had nine sons and five are still living–Joshua, Falcon, Dominic, Cort, and Sean. He has three grandchildren; Patrick, Brianne, and William.”

“And you,” Elspeth said. “Patrick said you were his cousin.”

Silver’s eyes flickered. “The old man will not admit I am his kin. There is no proof. My mother was only an Indian who caught his son, Boyd’s, eye. He bedded her, left his seed, and rode out of our village without another thought. When my mother grew big with child, Sun Eagle, the brave to whom she had been promised, decided to redeem his honor. He killed Boyd Delaney and took my mother away to a tribe far to the north of here. When I was born, I had these.” Her hand gestured to indicate the startling crystal gray of her eyes. “Sun Eagle was willing to accept my
mother, but not look upon me, her shame, with every passing day. One night he rode down from the north and left me wrapped in a blanket on the porch of the homestead at Killara.” Her lips twisted. “And the next morning Shamus sent me to the village of my mother’s father, Black Bear, with a message that I was no blood of his.”

Elspeth felt a surge of poignant sympathy. “How terrible for you.”

Silver’s expression became suddenly fierce. “Why? Black Bear was very kind to me. There were others in the village who had no use for a white man’s leavings, but I had no need of the old man’s charity. I would have been just as happy not to have ever seen the Delaneys again. It was Rising Star who made me come back to Killara.”

“Rising Star? I’ve heard that name mentioned before.”

“She is my aunt and married to Joshua. It was at the feasting when they were joined that Joshua’s brother met my mother. Joshua took my aunt to Killara and she lives there like a fine lady.” A fleeting wistfulness touched Silver’s expression. “When I was five she came to our camp and took me home with her. For four months of every year she kept me with her, giving me schooling and teaching me white men’s ways. It was a very brave thing for her to do. She has always been frightened of the old man and he didn’t want me there, even for just four months out of the year.”

“She sounds like a very splendid lady.”

Silver’s lips curved in a bittersweet smile. “I said she lives ‘like’ a fine lady, but she is Indian and the whites never let us forget.” Her expression softened. “But Rising Star truly is a wonderful woman. I am proud to call her my aunt. She bears her pain with the strength of a great warrior.”

“Pain?”

Silver’s lips thinned. “You have heard enough about the Delaneys. If you want to know more, you must ask your man to tell you.”

Elspeth’s eyes widened in bewilderment. “My man?”

Silver shrugged. “Dominic.”

Wild rose color stained Elspeth’s cheeks. “You misunderstood. He’s not my—” She moistened her lips and started again. “I know our circumstances are not the most proper but …”

Silver was gazing at her in puzzlement. “Why do you lie to me? When you wept and screamed in fear, only he could comfort you, and when he thought you were going to die, he was as fierce and sorrowful as if you had been his squaw for many years. I know the signs of belonging.” An ironic smile touched her lips. “One who does not belong anywhere can always read such signs very well.”

“Well, you’ve read the signs wrong this time.” Had Dominic genuinely felt concern for her? The idea was fascinating. She wondered if he had really looked at her with pain and sorrow as Silver claimed. It was clear he wasn’t as hard a man as she had first thought. His love for his nephew, Patrick, was plain enough to see; there was no mistaking the remorse he felt for his part in her injury. She had even believed for a moment that he was going to give in to her plea to lead her to Kantalan. Still, Silver had to be mistaken.