A Lady of the West Read online

  “Why are you here?” she asked, sliding off the bed. With Jake anywhere close by, lying on a bed was risky.

  “I wanted to make certain you’re all right.”

  “I feel fine.” She walked to the mirror and began repairing the damage done to her hair.

  He came up behind her, dwarfing her reflection. “Come back to our room, Victoria.”

  She could feel the force of his will like an iron hand pressing down on her. He fully expected her to obey him; after all, his will had prevailed in everything from the very first. He had the power to enforce his orders and was willing to do whatever was necessary. She had been trained to believe it was a wife’s duty to obey her husband; if the issue had been anything less important, she knew she would have given in without a struggle. But she couldn’t give in on this. She gave her head a slow shake. “No.”

  He put his hands on her waist and drew her back against him. His head dipped and he pressed his mouth to her hair. “You need someone to look after you if you get sick during the night.”

  The heat from his body made her weak. What he offered weakened her, all the more so because it would have been so right for her baby’s father to lie beside her during the nights and hold her while she was ill. But she couldn’t go back into his arms knowing he hated the life growing in her, knowing that he wanted her back only for the sexual pleasure she could give him. It would be impossible for him to deny that charge, she thought, since she could feel his hard length against her buttocks.

  It would have been so easy to let herself relax, to lie back against him and let his strength support her. Because it was so easy, she didn’t dare let herself do it for a minute. She straightened and returned her attention to the task of pinning up her hair. “If I need anyone, I’ll call Emma.”

  “Why disturb Emma when you could be in bed with me?”

  “Why be in bed with you when I could disturb Emma?”

  Anger darkened his face and drew his brows down. “I’ve tried to reason with you, but now I’m telling you. Put your things back in our bedroom and your ass back in our bed tonight, or I’ll do it even if I have to carry you over my shoulder for the entire household to see.”

  “Maybe if you’re violent enough you’ll be able to make me lose the baby.”

  Her hissed words stunned him. For the first time he realized that if he did move her back into their bedroom he really would have to use force to do it. Until now he’d imagined that their estrangement had continued due to his own grievances, that when his anger calmed enough for him to tell her to return, she would do it. He’d expected her to balk, expected recriminations, expected to have to give her his sincere apology for having struck her and his equally sincere promise that it would never happen again, but he’d also fully expected to have her back in his bed that very night.

  But now he saw that while he might be ready to end their estrangement, she wasn’t. She wasn’t about to forgive him. She was angry at him, and he had his stinging cheek to prove it. If his cheek was still burning, how had her face felt after his blow? Her slap had snapped his head around, but his had knocked her off her feet. A woman was helpless against a man, and he knew it. He’d never felt anything but contempt for a man who raised his hand to a woman, and now his contempt was turned on himself.

  “No,” he said in a tight, strained voice. “I won’t do anything to hurt you or the baby.”

  “Then you’ll leave us alone.”

  “Jesus.” He was suddenly tired, as if he’d put in a long day branding calves. Victoria was as unbending as steel, and he didn’t know what else he could say. He’d sworn he wouldn’t hurt her, but it hadn’t made any difference. Maybe he hadn’t given her enough time, maybe her pregnancy was making her irrational. He didn’t know what it was, but he was wary of pushing her too far.

  “All right, I’ll leave you alone. When you decide you’re ready to sleep with me again, all you have to do is open the door and crawl into bed. But don’t wait too long. I might find some other woman who’s willing to do what you won’t.”

  She waited until he got to the door, then said, “Like the Major?”

  He froze for a moment, his back stiffening, then left the room without a word.

  Victoria dragged through the days. The symptoms of early pregnancy were upon her with a vengeance. Some mornings she was so sick that nothing seemed to settle her stomach. Even on the days when she thought the nausea would be mild, it took only a stray odor to send her stumbling for a basin or chamberpot. Her bladder seemed to be permanently and uncomfortably full; her sleep was so disturbed by her frequent trips to the chamberpot that she was dull and sleepy during the day. Most of all, her emotions were rioting. She cried easily, and lecturing herself had no effect on the endless tears.

  The household was divided into those who knew and those who didn’t. Carmita, Lola, Juana, and Celia knew only that Victoria was pregnant and were full of cheerful planning and advice on childbirth, childrearing, and names. They knew Jake and Victoria had quarreled, but didn’t begin to suspect the extent of it.

  Emma and Ben were the only other people who knew the circumstances behind Victoria’s move to a separate bedroom. Ben was scrupulously polite to her, but there was a chill in his eyes. Emma didn’t rebuke Jake by either word or deed, but she was cold to Ben because she felt he didn’t have any right to pass judgment on Victoria.

  The only censure Jake felt was from Victoria, and he endured it. What else could he do? She was too sick for him to press the issue, and as the days became weeks his biting anger changed to concern. Rather than gaining weight, she had lost several pounds. Her waist was reed-slender and her dresses were becoming loose. Her complexion was alternately pale, gray, and greenish, and there were permanent dark circles under her eyes.

  She should be showing her pregnancy by now, if everything were normal. He lay awake at night, tormented by the worry that something had gone wrong. Why wasn’t the sickness going away as he’d heard it should well before now? He wasn’t concerned for the baby, but about the possibility that he might lose Victoria, too. He began remaining close to the house as much as he could, so he would be on hand if she became seriously ill. God, if she would only stop vomiting so much. Almost nothing stayed down.

  But being so ill hadn’t changed her hostility toward him. It was in her eyes every time she looked at him, in the way she carefully kept out of his reach and answered him only in a one-syllable monotone, if possible.

  She hadn’t forgiven him. He was the one wronged, but she hadn’t forgiven him. For the first time he began to wonder if she really would leave after the baby was born, and how he would handle it if she chose McLain’s child over him. The only alternative, though, was to let her raise the child here on his ranch, and that he couldn’t do.

  “Victoria and Jake aren’t happy,” Celia told Luis, lying in his arms beneath a tree. They were in the middle of a copse, hidden from view by anyone who might happen by. They had become adept at finding places to make love, and Celia mildly enjoyed the intrigue. These past weeks had been the happiest of her life, as if all the pieces had finally come together and she was what she had been meant to be. Making love with Luis was so natural and perfect that she didn’t give a thought to the rules and restrictions Victoria had taught her. Celia was by nature a complete sensualist, and she had taken to lovemaking with guilt-free enthusiasm.

  “No one is happy all the time,” he said lazily. They were lying naked on a blanket, and he was sated from their loving.

  “But they aren’t happy at all now. Victoria looks so ill; I’m worried about her. And she won’t speak to Jake at all unless he speaks to her first.”

  “They’ve just had a quarrel, that’s all. They’ll make up.”

  “It’s been weeks now, and they haven’t made up.”

  Luis acknowledged that Jake had certainly been in a bad mood for a long time now. He hadn’t wondered at the reason, having more or less assumed it had something to do with Victoria being pregnant.