The Wildest Heart

I said weakly, “But the codicil to my father’s will… why…” and braced myself for the final demolishing of everything that remained.

Mark’s face changed. There had been tenderness and even pity to be read in his expression a moment before, and now it seemed as if it became guarded, slightly wary. I heard him sigh.

“I should have known that you would remember that. I had hoped that later, when you were in a calmer frame of mind… well, I see that it is my turn to make a clean breast of things, and to beg your understanding. You see, I promised my uncle…” Mark’s eyes looked steadily into mine as he told me the rest of it, and his closing of the gap in my knowledge proved just as damning a piece of evidence as the rest.

It had to do with the mysterious letter my father had written to me and then destroyed. Todd had known of it, for m

y father, with his usual honesty, had given him a copy.

“You see, Rowena, it was not exactly a letter. As a lawyer, I was the one to warn my uncle that as the last request of a dying man, such a document could be upheld in a court of law, as a further stipulation… and you at the time were an unknown quality. He even had Jules and Marta witness it—this letter could be regarded as a codicil of sorts itself!”

“But…”

“I know what questions you must have, and I intend to answer them. As for my part in it, I’m ashamed to say that I let my uncle coerce me into keeping silent, and then when I met you, I could not bear the thought that you might feel yourself obliged to… oh, God! To marry one of them? To let them steal part of your inheritance from you as an alternative? It was unthinkable—in this one instance I agreed with my uncle that your father was carrying his sense of justice too far.”

The letter that Todd had concealed had given reasons for my father’s wishes. And then had stated baldly that if I chose not to marry one of Alejandro Kordes’s issue, either land, or a lump sum of money be gifted to each of them, and to Elena herself. If I did marry one of the brothers, he stipulated that I should give the others a reasonable amount of money each.

“And then, Rowena, on that night—he would not tell me his reasons, but he told me he had changed his mind and had burned the letter. I was overjoyed! You see now why I did not feel it necessary to even mention the existence of such a document? It was no longer valid—and he told me he intended to draw up a codicil that would make everything clear. You were no longer to be forced into an objectionable marriage, although he still intended to see that Ramon Kordes, and Julio, if he wished it, should be provided for. He would pay for Ramon’s education and travel abroad, he would deed to Julio fertile land where he and his people might be encouraged to settle down as farmers before they were all killed off or herded onto a reservation. You understand, I am only repeating what he told me he intended to do. Whether he had the time to draw up such a document I do not know; certainly, I never saw it. But this time, as he told it to me, there was a glaring omission—Luke Cord.”

I looked at Mark, and he returned my look. In the background I could hear the ticking of the big grandfather clock that stood in a corner of the room, a popping noise in the fireplace as one of the logs that Jules had placed there burst into flame. I could almost imagine I heard the beating of my own heart.

Mark had been right earlier. I had had enough for one night—for one day—for a lifetime.

There was nothing more to be said for now except the usual things. Jules came back in to clear off the table and bring us coffee. Mark refused the brandy I offered him and said he must leave soon. I asked him to spend the night, and to my surprise he accepted, after a short hesitation, saying that he would have to leave very early in the morning and I must on no account disturb myself to see him off, for he would visit me again tomorrow.

“And your uncle?” I said with an attempt at lightness. Again, his answer surprised me. “I’m past the point of caring what my uncle thinks, or has to say!” he said in a tight voice. We had both stood up, and I had my hand outstretched to bid him good night when he suddenly took me in his arms. Not with force, but gently, tenderly. And for a few moments I took comfort in being there, with his lips pressed against my forehead.

With a ragged exclamation that sounded almost like an oath, he suddenly put me away from him. “You make it too easy for me to forget myself! But if you were not engaged to my uncle…”

“Mark, didn’t you hear me say earlier that that piece of nonsense is all over with?”

“I didn’t mean to burden you with any further problems tonight, Rowena.” Nevertheless, I caught a warning note in Mark’s voice. “But you would be wise to remember that my uncle is not only proud and arrogant but as stubborn as the devil as well. In spite of all his raging, I do not think he intends to release you from your promise to marry him yet. Not only because he still wants you as a woman but because of the SD and all it means to him. To own the whole of it has become an obsession with him, I’m afraid. I only thought I should mention it, and—yes, I’ll be honest enough to say it, whether you continue to frown at me or not—especially in view of my feelings towards you.”

Poor Mark—torn between his loyalty to his uncle and his feelings for me! And as for Todd’s ridiculous assumption that he could hold me to a promise made under stress, a promise I had often had second thoughts about; well, I could soon clear that up with Todd himself.

I caught back the angry words I had been about to utter and kissed Mark on the cheek instead. “That is to thank you for everything, dear Mark,” I said softly. I could tell he was pleased by the slight flush that rose in his face, and before we went our separate ways to bed the slight feeling of constraint between us had passed.

Mark told me later that he had slept well, and if he was surprised to see me up early enough to join him for breakfast, at least he was tactful enough not to say so, nor to make any attempts at serious conversation. He looked preoccupied, and I found myself concentrating on forcing down at least a part of the food that Marta set before us.

After Mark had taken a hurried leave of me, promising to come back in the evening for a game of chess, I wandered aimlessly into the study taking books at random from the shelves. I told myself that my father might have concealed the codicil to his will in one of his books; I can see now that it was an excuse to keep myself occupied.

I had found some of the answers I had been looking for—what would I do with them? What was I going to do with myself?

The sun was climbing, and it was already hot. I told myself that I should go riding, and take an interest in the running of the ranch. I must not let this sudden, letdown feeling of lethargy overcome my strength of purpose, not now.

And yet the truth was that I was tired. I had risen early because I could not sleep, except in fitful snatches. I had had frightening dreams which I could not remember upon waking, and every time I closed my eyes I could hear Mark’s firm and pitilessly logical words repeating themselves in my mind, superimposed upon memory-pictures I had not yet shut out. I had seen myself lying naked and content in Lucas’s arms, the way the sun wrinkles deepened when he squinted his eyes against the glare and the leaping green flames in their depths when he looked at me. The almost tormented note in his voice when he had told me, “I’ve wanted no other woman in the world the way I want you…” Had that, too, been another one of his lies? I could no longer trust him nor believe in anything he had told me—but how could I stop myself from loving him? This was the private hell that I had to learn to adjust to, and to live with, if I could. That in spite of everything I continued to feel this unnatural, irrational yearning for a man who had never denied his love for another woman, a man who was ready to cheat and steal and even kill for her, and who had in all likelihood caused my father’s death.

I put the books I had taken down away and called for Jules to saddle a horse for me. I had no clear idea of where I intended to go, or for how long I meant to ride. But the constriction of walls around me, pressing in on me like my memories, was too much to bear in my present mood of self-hatred.

And it was in that frame of mind that I met Todd Shannon again.

Thirty-Six

In spite of Jules’s protests I had insisted upon riding alone. I was already too familiar with the terrain that lay between my house and Todd Shannon’s palacio, and this time I rode north, towards the mountains. The strange thing was what I was no longer afraid of riding alone and unescorted. I felt as if I had already faced everything, and did not particularly care what might happen to me next.

I rode out of the shelter of a grove of trees, and found myself looking down the barrels of five carbines. I reined up, and met Todd Shannon’s narrowed eyes and thin smile.

“Told you boys an Injun wouldn’t make that much noise!” His sarcastic drawl scraped along my nerve ends, but I retained my composure.