Wild Star (22 page)

“I’ll find her,” Ira said. “I’ve got to find her.”

“Such a pity,” Brent said. “Her illness came upon her so suddenly, didn’t it? Here is your whiskey, gentlemen.” He walked away, knowing that if he’d stayed, he would probably have baited Ira to the limit, perhaps made him suspect something. He also wanted to kill Butler with his bare hands.

He went upstairs, unable to stay in the saloon. He locked the door to his office and walked through his sitting room into the bedroom. Byrony was looking healthy and scrubbed from her bath. She was wearing his dressing gown over her nightgown and was sitting up in his bed, reading one of his books.

“How very comfortable you look,” he said furiously. “I see you’ve helped yourself to everything you wanted.”

Slowly Byrony closed the book, a collection of Molière’s plays. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m being very careful—”

“Just shut up,” he said. “Your husband is downstairs looking the worse for wear, drowning his worries in whiskey, and swearing that he’ll find you.”

She turned utterly white.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t announce that you were upstairs in my bed.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Not really. Bannion did all the talking. You’re a poor demented girl, and Ira is obviously suffering tremendously with worry.”

Byrony swallowed. He was downstairs. God, what was she to do? Brent was angry again, probably because he was in the middle of this damnable mess. “I’m sorry.”

“If you say that word one more time, I’ll strangle you.”

“All right,” she shouted at him, finally enraged. “What do you want me to say? What do you want from me?”

“It’s really very simple. I want you to tell me the truth.”

She fidgeted a moment with the bedspread, fighting the need to tell him everything. “I can’t,” she said finally, raising her eyes to his. “It doesn’t concern you, Brent. I refuse to involve you any further in this—”

“This what?” he yelled. “I’m involved up to my neck.” Suddenly he paused, his eyes darkening. “You know, Byrony,” he said, watching her carefully, “you haven’t mentioned your child once. You plan to desert her?”

He saw the flash of—what was it, horror?—in her eyes before her lashes came down. He pushed. “I see that you haven’t spared a thought for your child. You don’t care that she’ll be raised by that fool husband of yours? Don’t you care, damn you?”

“No, it’s not like that.”

“Not like what? You’re as miserable a mother as you were a wife?”

“Please, Brent, don’t—”

“Don’t what? Lady, you’re a miserable human being from all I can see.”

She wailed, a high, thin sound, her hands slamming against her ears to keep out his words. She was shaking, the horror and pain so dreadful that she felt she would die with it. Sobs broke from her throat. She stared at him, unaware that tears were streaming down her face.

Brent cursed, sat down beside her, and drew her into his arms. “Stop it. Stop your bloody crying.” But she couldn’t.

His face twisted with his own pain as he tried to calm her. He buried his face against her neck as he stroked his hands down her back, pressing her face into his shoulder. He felt her breasts heaving against his chest, felt her delicate bones beneath his probing fingers. God, he wanted her. Now. “Byrony,” he whispered, kissing her temple. “Hush, love. Hush.”

She shuddered, even as she raised her face. His mouth closed over hers. He tasted her tears, felt her start of surprise. But she didn’t withdraw from him. He felt the moment she wanted him, but it wasn’t right, and he knew it. But he couldn’t stop himself. His kisses deepened, his tongue probed to enter her mouth. When she parted her lips, he thought he would explode from the sheer pleasure of it. She tasted so warm, so sweet, so yielding.

She was his now, all his. His hands swept over her. He couldn’t get enough of her fast enough.

She arched against his hands, pain, desire, astonishment, all mingling together as the urgent feelings whipped through her. His hands were on her breasts. How could that make her feel so wild?

“Please,” she whispered.

Brent tried to slow himself. He’d wanted her for so long.

He wanted her pressed against him, naked flesh against naked flesh. He wanted to stroke her, kiss and taste every inch of her. Fill her with himself. He tried to pull her arms from around his back. “My clothes. I have to get off my clothes.”

She didn’t want to let him go. He was her anchor. He was safety, he was the source of her passion. Her fingers fumbled wildly with the buttons on his vest.

Brent managed to strip himself, despite her help. He had to rise to pull off his trousers and boots. He looked down at her and thought he would drown at the passion in her eyes. When he was naked, he yanked back the covers, slipped into bed beside her, and pulled her against him. “Oh, damn,” he said, and jerked off the dressing gown. Her nightgown presented many small buttons and he ripped the gown off her.

What am I doing? The question came to her sharply, but she dismissed it, not caring. She cared only about this moment, having this man who’d haunted her since that long-ago day in San Diego. She didn’t care that he would continue to despise her. She pressed her hands against his chest. He felt warm, his flesh so smooth.

She felt his rigid sex against her closed legs. He’ll come inside me, she thought. He’ll fill me with himself. Her body rippled with anticipation, and she whispered his name.

He couldn’t get her close enough. When she said his name, helplessly, eagerly, he thought he couldn’t wait. He pulled his mouth away and drew several deep breaths. But it was no good. He’d wanted her for so long. His hand stroked over her breasts and downward to her flat belly. She felt him cup her, his fingers searching, then finding. She cried out, arching upward.

She was warm, wet. She wanted him. He was shaking, he couldn’t wait. “Byrony—” He said her name as if in pain. He spread her legs, and moved over her. He should wait— give her pleasure—But he looked down into her face, saw that her eyes were glazed, saw her reach for him.

He raised her hips in his hands and slid himself slowly into her. He felt her pain before he was aware of the cause. He realized only that she was very small and that her body was fighting him. She cried out, struggled against him. He pressed forward with difficulty. Then he felt her maiden-head.

He went utterly still, his body frozen over her, his mind fighting against what he realized to be true. He stared down at her.

She cried out his name.

“No,” he whispered. “Oh God, no.” He tore through and seated himself to his hilt. He felt pain convulsing through her body, felt her shuddering beneath him. He reared back, beyond all reason, and let himself go. For many moments he was insensate. She didn’t move.

Reality, with its enormous complications, reared its head.

“Byrony,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows to relieve her of his weight.

She opened her eyes and stared up at him. Her lashes were matted with tears. Her eyes were clear, her expression unreadable.

He could think of nothing to say. He’d taken a virgin, a girl who was vulnerable, and he’d hurt her, badly.

“You can’t be,” he said slowly, as if the words themselves would cancel out the truth.

“I didn’t know it would hurt so much,” she said. “I thought it would be very nice.”

“It is, just not the first time. I didn’t know, Byrony.”

“No, how could you?” She spoke so calmly, but her mind was reeling with what had just happened between them. She waited for his guilt to turn to anger.

“Why didn’t you stop me? Why didn’t you tell me you’d never been with a man before?”

“I didn’t want to stop you, and I did tell you. You simply didn’t believe me.”

“You told me you’d never had a lover, Byrony, you had a husband and a baby.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he realized many things. Saint, when he had examined her, had known she hadn’t birthed a child. Obviously the child was Irene’s. Obviously her husband had married her to protect his sister. Brent tried to pull out of her, but she clasped her hands around his back.

“No, please don’t leave me.”

Her words made him instantly hard, and it shocked him, this instant and intense reaction to her. “I must,” he said. “If I stay inside you I’ll hurt you again. No.”

He came out of her. “Are you all right?” He pulled her against him, his fingers massaging her shoulders and her scalp.

“Yes.”

“There’s much we have to talk about,” he said, wondering where to begin, what to say.

He felt her head nod slowly against his shoulder, then felt her body go slack against him. She was asleep.

Brent pulled the covers over them, and leaned over to douse the lamp beside the bed. He wanted to laugh, and it took all his will to keep still.

“You randy fool,” he said to himself and the silent room. “You just took a virgin.” Life was made up of the unexpected, and certainly he’d had his share of surprises, but this floored him. He remembered everything he’d said to her, all the very graphic sexual images. He realized that he knew nothing about her, nothing at all. And all she knew of him was what he had shown her.

He wasn’t a good man.

What was he going to do?

Tomorrow she would tell him the truth, all of it. And if she refused? He’d make love to her until she was crazy.

Would she withdraw from him? Remember the pain and be afraid of him? He drew her closer. “Byrony,” he whispered against her temple, “I’m sorry.”

She mumbled something in her sleep and pressed closer, her hand fisting against his chest.

Byrony awoke suddenly, disoriented, and aware of soreness between her legs. She frowned a moment, not remembering. She felt the warmth of him, felt his hand touching her hip. Brent moved closer to her, and she slowly turned her head to look at him.

His dark hair was tousled, his cheeks covered with dark stubble. There was a slight smile on his lips in his sleep.

I’m a woman now, she thought, and swallowed, easing slowly away from him. She felt sore and sticky. She jerked up, lowering the covers. There was blood on her thighs and on the sheet beneath her. My blood, she thought. She remembered the pain when he’d entered her. She wondered if blood signified her passage into womanhood. No one had ever told her about that. She remembered at the age of fourteen she’d begun her monthly flow. Aunt Ida had merely nodded when Byrony had told her, fear thick in her young voice, and told her, her eyes not quite meeting Byrony’s, it was something she would have to bear for many years.

“What the hell happened to your back?”

She’d pulled her hair over her shoulder and unconsciously begun to weave her fingers through it to get out the tangles.

“Byrony, answer me.”

She felt his fingers lightly touching her and shivered. She grabbed the covers and pulled them to her chin, but of course her back was bare to his eyes. Slowly she turned her head to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“There are scars on your back, faded, but there. Who the hell beat you?”

She’d expected his anger, indeed, was ready for it. But his anger was directed against another this time. “It was a long time ago,” she said.

“Who, Byrony? That husband of yours?”

“No, Ira never touched me.”

He laughed roughly, falling off into a near-moan. “God, I know that well enough—firsthand.”

“It’s raining,” she said, staring toward the windows.

“Who, Byrony?—And yes, I see it’s raining.”

“My—my mother’s husband.”

“Your stepfather?”

“Father.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t let him beat my mother,” she said calmly. “Not in front of me, at any rate.”

It was that acceptance in her voice that shook him profoundly.

“He’d hurt her so many times before, you see. That was why she sent me to live with her sister in Boston. To protect me. I’d only been back in San Diego for six months when I first met you.”

He lay back, pillowing his head on his arms. She was still sitting up, her long hair rippling over her shoulder, the covers to her chin, her back naked. She looked so beautiful, so innocent, so accepting, that he wanted to yell.

His hands clenched, but he kept them where they were. If he touched her, he’d make love to her again. He was hard. He raised his knees slightly under the cover so she wouldn’t see. She wasn’t ready for that. He had no intention of hurting her again.

“I remember when I met you in San Diego,” he said finally. “I spoke to that old man, my thought at the time merely to learn your name. I told you about him and what he’d said.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“It was all a lie.”

“Of course. I told you it was.”

“Why would a girl’s father lie about her, Byrony?”

She made a slashing movement with her hand, and now there were bitterness and anger in her voice. “He is an animal. He called me a slut, and much worse. I had only one friend, a young Californio, named Gabriel. My father accused me of sleeping with him and carrying his bastard. He went to see Gabriel’s father and extorted money from him.” She paused a moment, then continued, her voice very sad and soft. “Poor Gabriel was shipped off to Spain. He was a nice boy, a friend, someone I cared about.”

She shifted, then bowed her head.

“What, Byrony?”

“I have no one to ask. There’s blood on me, and I was frightened. Is that natural?”

He swallowed, a shaft of pain in his belly. “Yes, it’s natural. It won’t happen again. Come here, Byrony.” He saw the wary look in her eyes, and added quickly, “I won’t make love to you again. I just want to hold you.”

Still wary, she watched him as she slipped onto her back to lie beside him. He brought his arms down, and very slowly, not wanting to frighten her, drew her against his side.