The Wildest Heart

I caught my breath, but I did not pretend not to know what he meant. “Has it been so obvious? I’ve tried…”

“Perhaps you try too hard. Sooner or later, you will see Lucas Cord for what he is—a conscienceless, predatory killer, not far removed from the level of a beast. And then you will stop romanticizing what happened to you, and go back to being your true self.”

“Mark,” I began, “I don’t—”

“You must not stop thinking of me as your friend, just because we are now husband and wife,” he said gently. “And that is all the more reason why we should be completely frank with each other. It does not pain me to hear you speak of him, Rowena, because you see, I have you; he does not. And the day will come when you will make your own choice, of your own accord, and turn your back on the past forever.”

An impassioned speech, but a slightly puzzling one, unless Mark meant that he was wooing me with gentleness, where Lucas had taken me by force. What would he think if he knew t

he truth? Dare I tell it to him? I might have been tempted to make a clean breast of everything, including the last visit Lucas had paid me, if Mark had not kissed me at that moment, his arms holding me possessively. And this time his kisses held a passion and ardency he had not shown me before as he forced my lips apart with his.

I felt myself thrown off balance, a feeling I did not altogether enjoy. And I found myself wondering, as we walked slowly back to the hotel, what other surprises Mark might have in store for me this evening.

There were none, at first. Mark had reserved a table for us in the corner of one of the smaller dining rooms, where we could eat in privacy. The food was tolerable, and the champagne was iced. Under Mark’s amused eyes, I drank far too much of it. Perhaps I was preparing myself for the test of the night that lay ahead of us—Mark had made no mention of his joining his friends later.

He drank more champagne than I did, and I noticed that his face became slightly flushed, but he made no attempts to draw me into an intimate conversation again, limiting his remarks to the kind of thing we used to talk about before. Books and music and the theater, some of his experiences in the law courts.

And then… “The law has always fascinated me; I suppose it comes from being born into a family of lawyers.” He spoke casually, twirling the stem of his glass between his fingers. “Even when I was not directly involved, I would make a point of visiting the courts whenever I could, particularly when a case that was exceptionally interesting or controversial was being heard. The territorial courts fascinate me; the atmosphere here is so much less formal than it is in the more civilized parts of the country. As a matter of fact,” he went on in the same casual tone, “I traveled up here to Socorro with my uncle for Luke Cord’s trial, but more to hear Jim Jennings, the attorney from San Francisco your father retained, than from morbid curiosity.” He looked up at me. “You’ve heard about it?”

“Mr. Bragg told me the whole story before I ever came here,” I said through stiff lips. “He—his descriptions were very vivid.”

“Cord was guilty, of course. He should have been hanged in the interests of justice—it would have saved so much trouble and unhappiness if he had! Did he tell you he was innocent? My poor Rowena!” My expression must have given me away, for Mark shook his head slightly. “I talked to Flo afterwards, at your father’s urging. He imagined—well, the poor girl had always been a flirt—you saw how she was. He thought that perhaps it was her fear of my uncle that made her cry rape. But she swore to me that that was what actually happened, and if you could have seen the state she was in, with her clothes ripped and bruises on her body, you would have had no choice but to believe her too.”

“But, my father…”

“Your father did not want to believe that his protégé, the son of the woman he loved, would lie to him. And Cord, of course, had his own motives for going to your father, instead of running away. We know what those were, don’t we? That letter, the money he hoped to inherit. I think he believed your father’s influence would get him off scot-free; you should have seen the stunned look on his face when the judge handed down his sentence!”

“Must we talk of these things now? It’s all in the past, Mark.”

“But to understand the future you must understand the past as well. Don’t you see that, Rowena? This is not an unjustly treated, put-upon man we are talking of, but a cold-blooded, calculating one. ‘And the truth shall set ye free’… remember?” Mark quoted.

“Very well!” I raised my chin defiantly. “I accept the truth. You were all right and I was wrong, gullible, foolish! But is it foolish of me to ask that we change the subject of our conversation to… something more pleasant?”

“Of course!” Mark said equably. “I didn’t mean to upset you. One day, you know, we will be able to mention his name and you will do no more than give a casual shrug…Well, shall we talk about Paris and London now, or shall we go upstairs to bed?”

“To bed, please,” I said a trifle unsteadily. “I think I have had a little too much champagne to drink.”

Mark carried me across the threshold to our room because, he said, this was our real wedding night. And although I did not realize it at the time, another threshold had been crossed as well—this time, in our relationship. For at last I was to begin understanding the real nature of the man I had married.

“I am a sensualist,” Mark said to me, as he turned up the lamps, one by one. “Does it surprise you?” I stood with one hand on the back of a chair to support myself, watching him, and made no answer. He smiled at me and went on, “You see, I am being honest with you. I want you to understand me, Rowena, just as I mean to understand every little thing about you. Your likes and dislikes, your desires, your—needs. Our marriage is going to be perfect. We shall be partners, lovers, friends, achieving all our goals together. Why do you think I have waited so long to be married? I was looking for the perfect woman, you see, and I think I have found her in you. Beauty—and I love beautiful things around me, had you guessed that? Intelligence and wit, strength and ambition; the ability to rise above all obstacles and setbacks…”

“Mark, you flatter me!” I said a trifle desperately. “But I don’t think I can ever live up to the perfection you demand. I’m not perfect, surely you of all people must realize that?”

“I realize that you are the only woman I have ever wanted,” he said seriously, coming to me and tilting my chin up with his fingers. “Your being here with me as my wife is an example of what I have just been speaking of. You see, from the first moment I saw you I was determined to have you; just as I am determined now that you shall love me and admire me too—just as much as I do you.”

“Mark!”

“Hush,” he said, turning me around as if I had been a doll. “It’s time I made love to you, worshiped your body as it deserves to be worshiped.”

Somehow I found myself in front of the mirror again, almost too dizzy to move or do anything more than grip the edge of the dresser with both hands as my husband began to take the pins from my hair.

One by one, just as slowly as he had turned up the lamps so that the whole room glowed with their light like the center of a giant ruby. And then the tiny hooks that held my gown together at the back. I would not look at Mark’s eyes in the mirror. Mirrors reminded me of Edgar Cardon, of myself, naked except for the diamonds sparkling about my throat.

The silk gown fell rustling to the floor around my ankles, trapping me where I stood, trapping me like the gold circle on my finger. Mark was a blur behind me as he began to slip the thin silk chemise I wore down my shoulders, his fingers lingering against my skin. Mark—or Edgar? I saw only my own eyes in the mirror, and they were the eyes of a stranger, staring back at me, wide and startled and shining with an unusual, glittering brilliance.

“Sapphires to match your eyes,” Edgar had whispered once, and I was a marble statue with jewels for eyes.

I felt Mark’s body move against mine—the rough texture of his clothes, the softness of his hands as they stroked my cringing flesh.