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“Stop it, stop it! You’re insane! I hate you, Todd Shannon!” I said the words out loud, but he only laughed.
“That’s a good start! Closer to love than indifference! Gonna take you back now, an’ you’re going to act the cold, unapproachable lady, because that’s the way you are. Cold on the surface, fire underneath. Mine. You hear that? Like it or not, you wear the SD brand now.”
He took me back to his guests after that, and I found myself forced into the position of hostess, as he kept me at his side. I can’t remember the thoughts that swirled through my head during those hours that seemed to drag by. I was determined not to show him how he had affected me.
We might have been in a London drawing room. There was the same exchange of surface politeness, the same inanities, the same pointless bursts of laughter.
We went in to dinner, and I discovered that Mark and Flo had been placed at the other end of the massive table. I sat on Todd Shannon’s right, the governor’s wife on his left. I responded mechanically to the questions and comments that I was besieged with. Mark avoided my eyes. How much had he told Todd? How much had Todd told him? Flo Jeffords was unusually silent, although I imagined that from time to time she shot resentful glances in my direction.
But what on earth was I going to do? When the evening was over I would have to face Todd Shannon again. I could no longer rely on Mark for support. Suddenly I wondered wildly if the whole thing had been carefully planned between them—Mark’s proposal, the sudden invitation to dinner. I felt trapped.
“Dancin’ after dinner,” Todd announced unexpectedly. I caught his significant glance and looked away. He leaned closer to speak to me, his blue green eyes gleaming with deviltry.
“Same musicians gonna play at the big shindig at Silver City. Had it all arranged before I knew you’d be here.”
“Oh, really? And if I hadn’t agreed to come I suppose you would have had me kidnapped?”
“I was thinkin’ about it,” he said solemnly, and I turned away from him, fighting an impulse to slap his face.
Governor Wallace was telling me about the book he was writing, and I tried to pay attention, but I was overwhelmingly aware of Todd Shannon’s presence at my side. I thought that dinner would never be over, and was hoping for some respite when the women retired, but unfortunately they did not have such civilized customs here.
“Time for dancing,” Todd said, and dragged me off with him to begin it.
“Didn’t think you’d be able to manage a fandango, so I told them to play a waltz first,” he said, locking me in his arms.
“You’re going too far!” I said between gritted teeth. “If you think you can force me into something…”
“Ain’t gonna force you into nothin’. You’re going to be willing, stubborn as you act! Give you two months, less, if you keep on rilin’ me.”
“I won’t marry you, damn you!”
He laughed when he saw he had made me lose my temper. “We’ll see! It’s that, or be made a dishonest woman of. Won’t look right.” He sighed with mock regret. “No, much as I’d be tempted, I guess it had better be marriage.”
“I will not! I’d rather…”
“You gonna run away back East? Give up?”
“No! You won’t scare me away either, Todd Shannon!”
“What makes you think I’d let you go?”
It was impossible to reason with him. Even my sarcasm seemed to slip off his hide. I had never met a man so sure of himself, so sure of me.
In the end, I only escaped from his arms on the pretext that I had to freshen up.
“Flo will go with you to show you the way,” he said, lifting one eyebrow in an infuriatingly amused fashion.
We went upstairs. My nerves felt like taut wires. I was too much on edge myself to be tactful.
“But don’t you miss New York? Boston?”
Flo stared at me with open dislike. “You mean Derek? Well, why should I? He’s old. Like Pa, only Pa doesn’t show it as much, and Pa goes after what he wants.”
We faced each other across the room, and she reminded me suddenly of those gossipy old women in India, who had also sneered at me. Only this time, I had the advantage. The mirror told me that.
I touched my hair, pushing the diamond stars into place, and smiled at Flo. “You’re afraid that he might want me?”
“I know he does. And you do too! Well, I don’t care. There’s been other women Pa thought he wanted, but the last one he married was my mother!”
