AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With no more need for pretense I asked, in a voice so hoarse I could hardly recognize it as my own, “He’s… really gone?”
She began to smooth my hair awkwardly, her head nodding.
“Si, he has gone. Jules called to the men who guard outside, offering them coffee. He could not sleep, he told them. And while they were busy, he left. As quietly as if he had been Apache himself. Don’t worry; he knows how to take care of himself, that one. He asked me to look after you,” she added in a slightly softened tone. “‘Go to her, Marta,’ he said, and only shook his head when I scolded him for upsetting you. ‘She may feel unhappy for a little while, perhaps, but later she will understand that it was for the best.’ Madre de Dios, there are times when I think that it is men who understand nothing!”
Thirty-Eight
I cannot remember if I slept again that night or not. I cried myself into a semistupor, in spite of all Marta’s attempts to comfort me. And the next morning, when I managed to drag myself out of bed at last, to study my tear-swollen, almost unrecognizable face in the mirror, I was suddenly swept with such waves of nausea that I could only clutch at the edge of my dressing table and moan like a sick animal.
Marta, who had gone to fetch a basin of cold water with which to bathe my eyes, came running to me; holding my head, smoothing the tangled hair back from my brow while I retched violently, unable to help myself. I did not need to meet her eyes afterward to read there, in her pitying look, the confirmation of something I had suspected already.
“I’m pregnant.”
I saw Mark’s face whiten with shock at the uncompromising bluntness of my statement. He had come to see me straight after his return from Las Cruces, and the first thing he had noticed was the redness of my eyes, my rather distracted manner. When he asked me directly what was wrong, I saw no point in evasion.
“My God! Rowena, are you sure?”
I had looked down, for a moment, at my clasped hands. Only the whiteness of my knuckles showing my inner agitation. And when I looked up I thought I had imagined the strange, fleeting look in Mark’s blue eyes. His face showed nothing but concern for me as he leaned forward. “Are you sure?” he repeated, and then when I nodded his voice grew firmer and harder than I had ever heard it before.
“Then there’s only one thing to be done. Surely you can see that for yourself?”
“Mark…” the mood of apathy into which I had relapsed had dulled my senses, and I could not think what he meant until he had taken my hands and was saying strongly:
“We shall be married. As soon as possible. No, Rowena, you must not argue with me. It is the only solution—for your own sake, and the sake of… of the child you are carrying. For your protection.”
I did argue with him, of course. But he demolished every argument I could offer. I must think of my future and the future of my unborn child. I did not want to think about Lucas, who had given me no answers and no explanations, and who, in his way, had been much more pitiless before he walked so casually out of my life. And, worst thought of all, suppose the child I was carrying was Ramon’s? Lucas had turned his back on me, but Mark had not. Mark loved me enough to accept me as I was, with all my shortcomings, and in spite of my embarrassing condition.
He was right, there was no other way. I had to accept the fact that I lived in a man’s world, and a pregnant woman without a husband, even if she was enormously rich and titled, would be ostracized wherever she went. This was something I could not run away from, and I had brought it on myself.
I was grateful to Mark, during the days that followed, both for his surprising strength of character, which I had not realized before, and for his kindness and tact. Once I had bowed to the inevitable, I found it easier to let Mark make the decisions for us both.
We would be married in three days’ time, and go to Boston for our honeymoon. And then we would return to New Mexico. Mark was adamant that I should lose no part of my inheritance.
“It’s what your father would have wanted, Rowena,” he said gently, and I could not find the strength nor the words to argue with him, especially when he added that he had, in fact, made contact with Jesus Montoya who had promised to have news for us by the time we returned.
“Of course he demands far too much money for whatever information he can give us,” Mark said grimly, “but I did not think you would mind.” No, I did not mind. I let Mark take charge of everything, and moved through the time I had left in a kind of daze, as if I was dreaming everything that happened. It was this state of mind that helped me to a short, but extremely unpleasant interview, with Todd Shannon.
He was furious, disbelieving, and contemptuous in turn. And in spite of my mood of cold remoteness I could not help but be proud of the way Mark stood up to his wrath.
“Rowena is going to marry me, and that’s that. You might as well get used to the fact, for we are going to be neighbors—and partners, Uncle Todd, whether you like the thought or not. I won’t allow you to intimidate her any longer. She has the right to make her own decisions.”
“She’s nothing but a…” Todd did not choose to mince his words, in spite of Mark’s angry protests. I was unmoved, even when his ugly, narrowed eyes bored into me. “You’re a damn fool, an’ a weakling, Mark! If she’s been carrying on with you behind my back, what’s to prevent her doing it again? You going to take that Injun’s leavings? Or…” and his voice sharpened, “is it that you’ve got her breeding? You sure you know whose brat she’s carrying?”
It was only for Mark’s sake that I did not blurt out the truth. But perhaps there was something showing in my eyes which made Todd Shannon throw back his head and laugh—an ugly, mocking sound.
“That’s it, I’ll bet! My noble nephew. Or mebbe you’re just smarter than I gave you credit for. This way you’ll get half of the ranch without waiting for me to die, an’ you can run for governor with all that money she’ll be bringing you. Ain’t that what you always planned on?” His raucous laughter jarred on my ears again. “By God—maybe you’re more of a Shannon than I thought, after all!”
His laughter followed us as Mark hurried me outside.
“Rowena!”
I shook my head at him. “No, Mark. There’s no need to say anything. Do you think I don’t know what he’s like? It doesn’t matter… he had to say something, don’t you see?”
But it was only my earlier training, under Edgar Cardon’s tutelage, that enabled me to make some pretense of responding when Mark took me in his arms and showered kisses on my face and throat
“Wait—por Dios, if you will only wait—a few weeks, a few days…” Marta pleaded with me. Her manner since that night had become almost motherly, and she had stopped her infuriating habit of referring to me as la patrona. “He will come back. I know he loves you; how can he help it? Men are stubborn sometimes.” But I couldn’t wait, any more than I could bear to disillusion her.
Lucas wouldn’t come back. He was with Elena, back where he had always belonged, and I knew this, although I did not tell Marta so. And in one thing, at least, Lucas had been right. We belonged in different worlds, he and I, and in spite of the fact that I could not help loving him and yearning for him I had, at the same time, to accept the fact that I could never trust in him again. There was too much evidence that pointed at him, too many unexplained incidents that taken together added up to damning proof. I had to put him out of my mind, and that was all there was to it. As for the child I carried within me, it was not yet a reality, nothing more than another uncomfortable, unpleasant fact that I had to face.
