The Awakening Read online

  “Yes, I know, but I was up all night studying and everything has been off since then. What’s for breakfast?” She sailed past him and didn’t see the way his mouth dropped open as he watched her.

  Taylor closed his mouth. Yesterday the kissing and now she was off schedule. He had to get her back under control.

  Amanda looked down at her poached egg and dry toast and nearly recoiled. She was so very, very hungry and this wasn’t enough to fill a rabbit’s belly. But she wanted to get back to her safe little world and this meager breakfast was part of it. She picked up her spoon.

  “Well, Amanda, are you going to start this morning’s conversation or must I?”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say? Oh yes, the conversation. I’m afraid I forgot what’s on the schedule. It has been a most hectic morning.” She looked up as the maids began carrying in one covered dish after another for Dr. Montgomery’s breakfast and set them on the sideboard. Amanda’s stomach let its yearning for the food be known to her. She gazed at the silver dishes with longing.

  “Amanda!” Taylor said. “What do you mean, you didn’t read this morning’s schedule?”

  “I read it; I just don’t remember it. Perhaps if you told me what was planned I could start the conversation.”

  Taylor didn’t have time to recover from his astonishment because J. Harker burst into the room, a cigar jammed into the corner of his mouth.

  “He’s gone,” Harker announced without greeting. “That professor and his fancy car are gone.”

  Both Taylor and J. Harker turned toward Amanda, their eyes accusing.

  “I did the best I could,” she said. “He didn’t like having his days scheduled for him.”

  Harker turned to Taylor. “You put him on one of those damned schedules of yours? What’d you do? Tack it to his door? You tell him when he was allowed to pee?”

  Taylor kept his back rigid. “I did not. Amanda was to stay with him, that is all. I merely suggested a few amusements for them.”

  J. Harker switched the cigar to the other side of his mouth. He’d always been in awe of Taylor’s education, but right now he wondered if Taylor’s brain was a book, with no common sense in it. “What kind of amusements? Libraries? Museums? He have to listen to Amanda reeling off facts?”

  Amanda’s face turned red at this, but neither man looked at her.

  “Dr. Montgomery is a professor. I’m sure he enjoyed—”

  “Enjoyed, hell!” J. Harker spat. “I was afraid to trust you on this. I didn’t think you knew what you were doing. I told you not to send Amanda out with him. Montgomery is a big, strapping stallion, not a broken-down old gelding. Damn! Why did I trust you? Now he’s gone, and instead of getting him on our side, he’ll probably run to the unionists.”

  “I doubt that. We have shown him every hospitality. He had someone of intelligence to converse with. Just this morning Amanda made a perfect score on a calculus test.”

  For a moment, Harker could only sputter. “You expected a young animal like Montgomery to sit around with a pretty girl and talk about…about book learnin’? Have you got ice water in your veins? For God’s sake, I can’t stand to be around a little prude like Amanda for more than ten minutes, and she’s my own daughter, so how can I expect a hot-blooded man like Montgomery to be able to stand her?”

  No one saw the way the blood left Amanda’s face.

  “I’m sure Amanda made every effort to entertain Dr. Montgomery. Perhaps some family emergency drew him away.”

  “Yeah, some emergency like fear of dying of boredom.” Harker put his cigar between his fingers and pointed it at Taylor. “You want this ranch, boy, you gotta do somethin’ besides run my daughter’s life. Those unionists cause me the loss of even a penny and I’ll set you out of here on your ear. You understand me?” He stormed out of the room.

  Taylor stood where he was, while Amanda remained seated, looking at her empty cup. Now Dr. Montgomery had caused her father to say these awful things about her. In the short time since that man had arrived, Taylor had shown he had no physical desire for her, and her father had admitted he couldn’t stand to be near her. Some part of her had wondered why her father never ate breakfast with her and Taylor or why he never joined them in the parlor after dinner. But she’d never dreamed it was because he didn’t want to be near her.

  She looked up at Taylor as he stood paralyzed, staring at the doorway. Was he upset at what Harker had said to his daughter? Amanda didn’t think so. She knew that it was fear on his face, fear of losing the ranch.

  But Dr. Montgomery would be angry about J. Harker’s words about his daughter, she thought, then squelched the thought.

  She stood. “I am going to my room,” she said softly and started toward the door, but Taylor beat her there.

  He closed the door, then put his back to it, barricading them in. “What did you do to offend him? Why did he leave?”

  Amanda’s head reeled with answers. She offended him by doing what Taylor wanted her to do. She pleased Dr. Montgomery only when she ate what wasn’t on the schedule, went places not scheduled and did scandalous things like attend a dance. But she couldn’t say any of those things to Taylor.

  “I am waiting, Amanda,” Taylor said.

  “I tried my best to keep to the schedule, but Dr. Montgomery doesn’t like museums.”

  Taylor’s eyes were cold and angry. “Perhaps you didn’t make them interesting to him. Perhaps you weren’t concerned enough with the welfare of the ranch to study enough to make the visits interesting.”

  It was all so very unfair. If Taylor loved her, didn’t he care what her father had just said to her? She had rarely been allowed out of her room before Dr. Montgomery came, and then, without asking her, they had thrust him upon her and expected her to know how to handle a man who stared at her legs and kissed her and shoved chocolate cake in her face. How was a lifetime of study supposed to prepare her for this man?

  “Your laziness is going to cost us the ranch,” Taylor said. “The unionists will take it away from us. The hops will rot in the fields with no one to pick them, and it will all be your fault.”

  “I did the best I could.” Tears of frustration sprang to Amanda’s eyes. She hoped Dr. Montgomery ran off a cliff in that car of his and no one ever had to see him again.

  “Your best was not good enough,” Taylor said with a half sneer on his lip. “I want you to spend the day in your room. Do not come out until tomorrow morning, while I try to think of some remedy for what you have caused. And since you seem to find calculus so easy, let us see how well you remember your Greek. I want you to begin translating Moby Dick into Greek.” He stepped away from the door. “Now go, and do not let me see you again for twenty-four hours.”

  Amanda went, but instead of feeling contrite she felt angry. Taylor had not been fair at all. He didn’t know what Dr. Montgomery was like. He had no idea what she’d been through with that dreadful man.

  But wait! she told herself. Taylor was good; he wasn’t wrong. She had failed in the task he’d given her. For whatever reason she’d failed, the result was the same, and he had a right to punish her.

  By the time she got to her room she had convinced herself that Taylor was absolutely right, and she did her best not to think of what her father had said. But as the day wore on, some of her original conviction left her. It was hot in her room, and her dress of heavy silk broadcloth was stiff and made her even hotter. Lunch time came and went and she was famished. Twice she glanced toward her windows as if she expected Dr. Montgomery to come into her room bearing canvas bags full of food. But the house was quiet and no one came to interrupt her study.

  By two o’clock she was faint with hunger and she was oddly restless. She couldn’t seem to keep her mind on her translation. Instead, she kept remembering last night at the dance. She remembered the music, the champagne, the couples dancing. She pushed her chair back and began to try to imitate the dancers’ steps. What would she have thought if she’d gone to a dance alone