Eighteen
Smiling at her own foolishness, Antonie wiped her tears away and handed Maria her handkerchief, for Maria had already soaked her own. Antonie suspected that her pregnancy had a little to do with her easy tears. Maria had warned her about that aspect of her condition. Nevertheless, she knew that the wedding also prompted tears. As she had watched Oro and Patricia exchange their vows, she had been deeply touched, joy for the couple bringing tears to her eyes.
There was some envy, too, she admitted reluctantly, not overly proud of her feeling. She wanted what Oro and Patricia had found, but it remained out of her reach. Though Royal’s words could be sweet and inflaming, he did not speak of love or of a future for them, only of passion. Nothing he had said spoke of his love and commitment to her.
Tomás disrupted her dismal thoughts by draping himself on a tearful Maria and wailing about having lost his brother. For a moment, she and Maria listened to his nonsense, then, exchanging glances, they simultaneously cuffed him.
“Such sympathy,” he grumbled as he rubbed his abused ears but then he grinned. “Stopped your tears though, eh?”
“They are going to have such pretty babies,” Maria said with a sigh.
“Perhaps we ought to let them have their wedding night before we start counting the brood,” Tomás added, chuckling.
“You are a naughty boy,” Maria scolded, giggling when he gracefully eluded her swat at him.
“Naughty? I am goodness itself, eh? I even took Oro aside for a man-to-man talk.”
“Who did you ask to be the man?” Antonie drawled.
“Toni, how you wound me,” Tomás said in an injured tone.
“Hah. I think I should worry about what ideas you gave Oro and warn Patricia.”
“I but gave him the benefit of my great experience and my skill.”
“He, of course, listened with rapt attention,” Antonie said with sarcasm.
“As one should when a master speaks.”
“Your vanity is beyond belief.”
He laughed, then rubbed his hands together in a gesture of eager anticipation. “Ah, they stop talking to the preacher. Now the drinking will begin.”
“Are you planning on getting drunk again?” Antonie asked.
“Sí. It is the custom to get drunk at a wedding,” he announced airily even as he started toward the punch bowl.
“Just remember that I will not have Oro to help me put you to bed.”
“Just leave me where I fall, chica. I will forgive you.”
“How gallant,” she muttered, then laughed along with Maria.
Antonie started toward Royal, hesitating only briefly when she saw Marilyn sidle up to him. She decided she no longer wanted to retreat every time that woman was around. All things considered, it was time to do a little fighting for Royal. If Marilyn was no longer around, Antonie knew she would find it a little easier to judge exactly where she stood with Royal.
“I think this was a mistake, Royal,” Marilyn said quietly.
“Oh? I don’t think so,” he replied as he took Antonie’s hand, almost smiling at the anger that glinted in her eyes at Marilyn’s words.
“This marriage will be the ruin of Patricia. You must see that.”
“Love cannot ruin a person,” Antonie said quietly.
“I am sure it is only an infatuation,” Marilyn replied, barely glancing at Antonie. “If you had held firm, Royal, it would have passed.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Marilyn,” Royal said coolly.
“Really? Many a woman has felt a slight fascination with a man not of her class or her blood. Patricia is simply too young, too naive, to differentiate between fascination and love. You should have given her more guidance in this.”
“Marilyn, I invited you to a wedding, not to lecture me on what you feel is my failing in raising Patricia.”
“I’m just saying what a lot of others are or will be. Really, Royal, he’s a half-breed, and not even half-white.”
“His mother was the half-breed, Señorita Collins,” Antonie said coldly. “Be correct in your insults.”
“She’s all done making insults, aren’t you, Marilyn,” Royal said, a cool threat hidden in his voice, and he smiled crookedly when she strode away. “I wonder if that’ll shut her up.”
“Do not count on it, amigo,” Antonie said, taking a few deep breaths to cool the urge to go after Marilyn and soundly beat her. “She feels she is right and that you are foolishly blind.”
“So do a lot of folks, but not as many as I’d feared,” he murmured as he glanced at the guests.
“Do they accept, or do they come to call you fool like Marilyn?”
“No, they’ve accepted the marriage. I’ve talked to most of them. Some are uneasy about it, but they figure we know what we’re doing. He’s Patricia’s choice and we’ve clearly approved it and that’s good enough for them.”
“And it is not their daughter or their sister,” she murmured, smiling faintly.
Royal laughed. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that’s in their minds. They probably wish I had a sister for Tomás.”
“Sí. They keep a close eye on their niñas. Do not worry. Tomás promised to behave.”
“Kind of him.”
“It was a great sacrifice, but he was willing to make it for Oro and,” she grinned, “after I convinced him that it would be very good for his health, eh?”
“I don’t think I’ll ask how you did that.”
“It might be best, querido.”
Antonie smiled politely when Mr. Paul Greaves approached them. He was a short rotund man with a kind nature, and his small family was much like him. She did not know him well, but instinct told her he was easy to like.
“A fine-looking couple,” Mr. Greaves said sincerely. “Pattie looks real happy. Yup, real happy indeed.”
“She is, Paul. It won’t be easy but,” Royal shrugged, “what is?”
“Not much, son. Are they going to live on her land? That’s the section at the north end of your place, right?”
“That’s right. Yes, they’re going to live there. Probably be settled there by this time next year if all goes well.”
“That’s good. It’s too empty out that way. Be sure to let me know when it’s time for the building that’ll be needed.”
“I will. Thanks, Paul.”
“No thanks needed. Now, where’d that wife of mine go?” he muttered as he wandered off.
“A nice man,” Antonie murmured.
“Yes, they don’t come much nicer. He lives the Golden Rule. Want a drink?” Royal asked.
She nodded and watched him disappear into the knot of people around the punch bowl. When she saw two young girls and a young man talking and laughing with Patricia and Oro, it made her feel good. They would have friends, and that would further strengthen them against the ones who could not look past their prejudices.
As if that thought had needed physical embodiment, Marilyn approached her. When Antonie saw that Royal was nowhere near returning to her side, she realized that Marilyn intended to have a private conversation with her. Antonie braced herself for what she knew would be a trying confrontation. She was determined not to cause a scene at Oro’s wedding.
“I suppose you think this will help you get your hooks into Royal.” Marilyn spoke in a soft, tight voice, nearly hissing the words.
“My hooks?” Antonie asked, feigning ignorance.
“It does you no good to play the fool, señorita.” Marilyn sneered the word, making it an insult. “You think this marriage will get you closer to being mistress here. It won’t work. If this marriage has given you an advantage, it won’t last long. I doubt that fool half-breed will live out the year.”
“You threaten him, Señorita Collins?”
“I state a fact. Oh, people might’ve looked the other way if it was just some girl lowering herself to marry a breed, but she’s toting a large piece of good land in her dowry. People don’t want his sort holding such good land and breeding a family on it. They’ll soon dispossess him, shall we say.”
“You’d best hope it does not happen, señorita. Shall we say,” Antonie sneered, “your life depends upon it.”
“Mine? I told you I don’t need to do a thing.”
“Sí, but I think I will forget that. I think I will only remember that you told me what would happen. Then I will think about the Bible. It says an eye for an eye, eh?”
“Something happening to Oro would give you a good excuse for getting rid of me, wouldn’t it? You could say it was justice, but it would simply be getting rid of the competition.”
“I hadn’t noticed you giving me any.”
“Well, I certainly would not lower myself to offer Royal my body as freely as you do.”
“Ah, sí, that is probably for the best. How embarrassing for you when he turns you down.”
“Would he? Maybe we should put that to the test.”
“Go right ahead.”
“I just might.”
Antonie slowly expelled her breath when Marilyn walked away. She was confident that she had held her own during the verbal duel but it troubled her. Her dare to Marilyn had been pure bravado, perhaps even recklessness. Antonie prayed that the woman did not take her up on it. She did not want her situation with Royal resolved by his bedding Marilyn.
“What was that all about?” Royal asked as he reached Antonie and handed her a drink.
“What?”
“Marilyn was talking to you and it didn’t look like friendly chitchat.”
“It was about hooks and land.”
Before a puzzled Royal could press for a clearer explanation, he was distracted by one of the guests. Only half-listening to the man, Royal watched Antonie start to dance with Tomás. He had the feeling that Marilyn had given Antonie a hard time and had probably been doing so for quite a while, but he doubted he would be able to get Antonie to admit it. It was the sort of thing Antonie would feel was her problem and her problem alone.
As he danced with Marilyn, Royal wondered if he should say something but decided that it was neither the time nor the place. He ruefully admitted that he dreaded a confrontation with Marilyn. When she expressed a need for some fresh air, claiming a faintness due to the heat, he reluctantly escorted her outside. He was startled into immobility when she suddenly flung herself into his arms and kissed him with none of the cool delicacy she had always maintained in the past. Finally, shaking free of his shock, he disengaged himself from her hold with more haste than tact.
“I thought you were dizzy,” he said, startled by the strong urge to flee the woman.
“Oh, Royal, how can you treat me so? Flaunting that woman in front of me,” Marilyn said tearfully as she put her arms around his waist and pressed her body against him.
Royal was nonplussed that he felt no desire for her, only a somewhat frantic need to get away. He was also a little shocked. Marilyn was moving against him with a subtle seductiveness that was totally at odds with the virginal pose she had always maintained. Suspicions began to seep through his mind as he again disentangled himself from her embrace.
“What’s between Antonie and me is none of your concern.”
“None of my concern? How can you say that? Oh, it’s my fault, I suppose. A man has needs and I ignored yours, but I’ve been raised to believe that a lady suppresses such needs until she is married. I did not mean for it to drive you into the arms of another woman.”
“I wasn’t driven.” He could not shake the feeling that he was watching a very good performance.
“Lured then. The fault is mine, but I am willing to correct that error.”
Even as she reached for him and he readied himself to elude her, Cole strode up to them. “The newlyweds are getting itchy.”
“Delicately put,” Royal said, stepping away from Marilyn and closer to Cole, ignoring his brother’s amused glance.
“We better tell them what we planned for them,” Cole said.
“Hell, yes. Let’s get going.” He was relieved when Cole neatly cut off Marilyn’s attempt to put her arm through Royal’s.
“What have you got planned?” Marilyn asked, irritation in her voice as Cole escorted her inside.
“You’ll see,” Royal answered a little distractedly as he spotted Antonie and headed straight for her, outdistancing Cole and Marilyn.
Antonie had seen Marilyn and Royal leave the room. Every moment they were gone felt like an hour to her. All she could think of was how she had challenged Marilyn and wonder if she had taken up the challenge. She waited, terrified that once Marilyn offered Royal more than passionless kisses, he would find that he no longer needed her. Anger also ate at her, an anger caused by his desertion before so many witnesses.
Those feelings were only eased slightly when he returned, with Cole escorting Marilyn. Antonie quickly reasoned that Cole might have simply interrupted things. Yet the harried look on Royal’s face soothed her. It was hardly the look of a man impassioned or contemplating something enjoyable. She tensed when he reached her and linked her arm through his, holding her close to his side.
“You’re staying right here all night,” he hissed.
“What?” Antonie croaked and watched him glance at Marilyn as if she were some frightful thing ready to spring at him.
“I’ll explain later. Just stay close.”
“You mean like protection?”
“God, yes. Come on. Cole said he thinks it’s time to spring our little surprise on the newlyweds.”
Clearly showing their confusion, Oro and Patricia allowed themselves to be urged outside where a beribboned buggy awaited them. A grinning Maria put a food basket and a small bag of clothes in the buggy. The guests piled into wagons or on their horses and Antonie found herself mounted in front of Royal as he led the gay entourage.
The group stopped before a small hut that served as a way station for cowboys on the range. It was freshly painted with flowers strewn on the doorstep. A laughing Oro carried a blushing Patricia over the threshold to the crowd’s cheer. Antonie helped Maria carry in the bags and smiled as she glanced around. She had known what was planned but had had little to do with the surprise, as she had kept Patricia too busy to find out about it.
Everything had been scrubbed clean. Pretty curtains decorated the windows and a lacy cloth covered the table where Antonie set the basket of food. A big, soft bed dominated the room and caused Patricia to blush. Laughing quietly, she kissed Oro, then Patricia, and helped Maria clear the cabin of teasing guests, closing the door after them.
When Royal swung her up onto the saddle and mounted behind her, she looked around at the guests starting back to the house and said quietly, “There is no need of this. Marilyn’s gone.”
“Gone?” Royal looked around and saw that the Collinses’ buggy was missing. “Odd.”
“Perhaps they thought that celebrating the bedding was more tolerance than they could bear,” Antonie said absently, smiling as she glanced back at the hut and saw that the light in the windows had already dimmed. “Why the dog?” she asked when she saw El Magnifico’s father tied by the step.
“Protection.”
Tensing as she suddenly realized how isolated Patricia and Oro would be, she asked, “You think this is a good idea?”
“Maybe not, but a couple’s wedding night ought to be private.”
“And safe.”
“Yes, I know. There’s a double guard set out.”
“I do not see them,” Antonie said, with worry lacing her voice.
“Neither will Oro, but they are there. It was a hard thing to decide on. I just thought they ought to have something a little special, something more than a room at the house. This was a compromise. Privacy, but a well-guarded one. Chance is a good watchdog, and I’ve put some of my best men on watch. If there is trouble, it will be quickly handled. Cole put enough guns and ammunition in the place to hold off an army.”
He smiled ruefully as they reached the house. Helping Antonie dismount, he watched his guests pour back inside and he and Antonie followed them in. “I think it will be a while before the celebrating ends.”
“You do not like celebrating?”
“I don’t mind it, but there’s something else I’ve got a hankering for.”
Her face reddened as she read the look in his eyes, then laughed. “Jealous of Oro and Patricia, eh?”
“Damn right.”
When a man approached them and began to talk about the trail drive, eager for information, Antonie left Royal’s side. She walked over to where Tomás and Jed Thayer leaned against a wall. One look told her that they probably needed that wall to support them. She wondered how they had made it out of the honeymoon cabin and back without falling out of their saddles.
“I hope you two are not part of the night guard,” she said, smiling faintly.
“Nope,” Jed answered. “Out last night and Royal said Tomás ought to be free to celebrate well.”
“He has done that all right,” Antonie said, amused.
Draping an arm around her shoulders, Tomás said, “I will need to find someone else to help you put me to bed.”
“Maybe you could just stop celebrating so well.”
“No, no, chica. Do you ask me to be a teeter-totter?”
Laughing along with Jed, she said, “You mean a teetotaller, amigo.”
“Strange language, this English.”
“Even stranger when you speak it,” she added.
Seeing the way she kept looking out the window, Tomás said, “They will be all right, little one.”
“Sí. They probably will be. They are guarded and they have shelter. It is just,” she sighed and shook her head, “well, every step we take is known, and now we have set two of our own out there almost alone.”
Tomás nodded. “There is a danger. We cannot ignore that. Ah, but, chica, it is their first night together. It is her first night, eh?” he said gently. “Something special was needed. This was a compromise. They are not safely here, but they are not all alone. Come, stop worrying and enjoy.” He grinned rakishly. “Oro is.” He laughed when she gave him a punitive nudge.
It was past midnight when Royal finally ushered out the last of his guests. Antonie was a little surprised that none of them had accepted his offer of a bed for the night. She wondered if, with all Royal’s troubles, the people felt that they were as safe, perhaps even safer, traveling the dark roads as they would be at his ranch.
Glancing up the stairs, she grinned. Cole and Justin almost had Tomás to the top of the stairs. A crooked smile curved her mouth, for she understood some of the feelings which drove him to such overindulgence. He was happy for Oro, but he was also faced with a drastic change in what had been a unique brotherly relationship. Tomás was sensible enough to know that Oro and he would always be tied in a way few brothers could be, but now Patricia shared Oro’s life.
“Alone at last,” Royal said as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “You’re looking very serious.” With his arm around her shoulders, he urged her up the stairs.
“I was just thinking of how Tomás must feel.”
“A little jealous maybe.”
“Sí. A little.”
“I’ve heard that twins can be close, closer than siblings usually are.”
“Tomás and Oro are. They share feelings, thoughts, too. Each has always been the most important person in the other’s life.”
“I think you’re pretty important to them.”
“Ah, sí, but not in the same way.” She looked at him and smiled teasingly as he followed her into her room. “You still need guarding, querido?”
“Don’t laugh. I wasn’t joking.”
“No?” Antonie asked, smiling.
“No, I’ll have you know I was almost raped, woman.”
Even though there was a humorous note in his voice, Antonie could read panic in his eyes. She bit her lip, but it did no good. Bursting out laughing, she fell onto the bed. She knew some of her amusement stemmed from a release from the fear that he might be willing to accept Marilyn’s overtures. It was, however, also simply funny to think that such a lean, virile man could be so upset by a beautiful woman’s advances.
“Think it’s funny, do you?”
Watching him advance toward her, she nodded. “Sí. Very funny. I thought you liked to be ravished.”
“Only when I ask for it,” he said, as he sat down and tugged off his boots.
“I did not hear you cry out in alarm.”
“It was a close thing,” he said, as he started to remove her shoes and stockings. “Is that what you’d do?”
“I do not know. I have never been ravished.”
“Maybe we should try it and see.”
Reaching up to unbutton his shirt, she purred, “What a good idea. How do you keep having such good ideas?”
“Inspiration,” he murmured against her mouth and proceeded, with her full cooperation, to prove that she did indeed cry out while being ravished, but not in alarm.
After they had fallen into a deep sleep, the sound of someone crashing into her room made Antonie wake up instantly, and she instinctively reached for her gun. She recognized Tomás immediately, but her eyes widened in surprise as a cursing Royal lit the lamp by the bed. Tomás was wild-eyed, yet looked fairly sober. He was also stark naked.
“We must go to Oro. Now.”
“What is it, Tomás?” Antonie asked, slowly infected by his obvious alarm.
“There’s trouble, chica. Bad trouble.”
Even as Royal rose and pulled on his pants, Antonie slid out of bed to yank on her camisole and pantaloons. She could not be sure how much of Tomás’s feeling was a true sixth sense and how much was some panicky delusion brought on by too much drink. Since she had been worried about Oro and Patricia when they had left the couple, she did not fully trust her own judgment.
“Tomás, you had a lot to drink tonight,” Royal said carefully.
“Sí. Too much. But I am cold sober now.”
“Are you sure?” Antonie asked quietly “You forgot to put your clothes on.”
“What matter is that?” He grasped Antonie by the shoulders. “Oro is in trouble. I feel it. He is in trouble and he is hurt.” He gave her a little shake. “I can feel it and I saw it in my head. We must go.”
“Maybe it was just a bad dream.”
“I said that to myself, but it is no good.”
“Look, there’s men out there,” Royal reassured him. “If there was trouble, they’d tell us.”
Even as he spoke the words, a commotion from downstairs froze Royal in place. He saw that it had the same effect on the others. Antonie felt a tremor go through Tomás and put a comforting hand on his arm. She knew he had had such feelings before, was more prone to them than Oro, but she was finding it hard to believe him. Inwardly grimacing, she admitted that she did not want to believe him. For all her worrying she did not want to think that Oro’s and Patricia’s wedding night could end in tragedy. She tensed as footsteps came pounding toward their room and suddenly Cole appeared in the doorway. He spared only one brief startled look at Tomás.
“There’s someone attacking the cabin.”