Legacy (22 page)

I could not contain my apprehension any longer. 'But he had red hair! Don't you see? That was the man who Father was . . .'

His hand tilted my chin. His eyes were clear and unafraid. 'It could have been,' he said. 'But it could have been someone else, too. This Campbell's not the only man in the territory with red hair.'

'But he was coming in the window! If I'd been asleep . . .'

'He didn't, though. And he won't.' Justin held me in his arms. His warm, reassuring presence gradually took away the chill of fear. Soon I was able to see that he was right, and I looked up to those blue eyes with some courage of my own. We would be safe. We would close the window and the man would not come back. Then in the morning we would find out who the man was and punish him. Both of us had seen his face. We would give the camp foreman his description. Even out here in the mountains such a man as that would be recognized. I buried my head in the warmth of Justin's shoulder and closed my eyes.

The heat of the fireplace began to steal up under my gown. After a few moments of quiet, I was suddenly conscious of Justin's body. I felt so soft against him, my own gown so thin. I trembled as the warmth I had felt earlier began to radiate through me. The feeling was so strong, so exquisite in anticipation. I clung to him and hoped he would think I was still afraid. I could not bring myself to move away, though I knew I would have to. Through my mind flashed visions of his kiss, the smooth, hard sleekness that would be his body. I could feel my breasts against his chest. My lips were only inches from his. My fingers were pressed into the firm muscles of his back. I wanted to rouse him, madden him . . .

His grip tightened on my shoulders as he held me away from him and looked at me, a smile beginning to appear in his eyes. What were those eyes saying? And what was this new trembling sensation that had filled me?

'You're all right?'

'I am. I'm better.' I looked up at him, my lips parted, still breathless with the strange passion that gripped me and made my flesh burn with excitement. How I wanted him to kiss me! But if he did, I knew that the last vestiges of control would vanish and I would be utterly helpless.

I summoned all my will and let go of him, stepping back. I felt suddenly cold, and I moved in front of the fire. 'Thank you,' I said. 'You were very . . .' But the other words would not come, except in a whisper, as I realized what had just happened. He knew. It was impossible that he did not know. All the woman's feeling for him had been there in my eyes, and he could not have failed to see it. And now what would he do? What would he think of me?

I heard him walk to the window and close it. Then he was at my side, taking a fresh log from the wood basket and setting it across the low flames in the hearth. As he straightened up, he looked at me with that same half-serious, half-smiling expression and turned me to him with a touch of his hand. 'Why don't you get the quilt and sit out here by the fire till you get sleepy again. You've had quite a day out here.'

And then he kissed me, lightly, on the lips, just enough so that I realized what his eyes had been saying all along. In another place, at a better time, when we could be safe and secure and not think of interruptions or of anything but each other . . . 'Oh Justin,' I said, 'I've been so . . .'

'You don't have to explain.' He drew me to him, hard for a moment, and I knew with a rush of joy that he shared the emotion that had possessed me. And then he had sent me on my way for the quilt, the touch of his hand on my back still lingering on my skin and making my cheeks burn hot.

When I came back, he sat me down in the chair before the fire and wrapped the quilt around me. 'All right, now you just stay right there,' he said with a look that promised wonders to come, that made all the past struggles with Steven and Father simply disappear. Then he grinned. 'I hope I don't do something Sam Rawlings wouldn't appreciate if he came in. I've always said there are some things a lady shouldn't have to put up with.'

In the warmth of his gaze I felt too full to speak. I could scarcely believe what seemed suddenly so clear. As he picked up his book and settled down in the chair across from me, I wondered how I could have been so close to Steven before, and yet tonight have such feelings for Justin burst upon me so forcibly with scarcely a kiss! Oh, but they had said I would know it when it happened. How could I be sure? . . .

'You're getting sleepy,' he said. 'Do you want to stretch out on the cot, or can you manage in the other room? I've locked the window.'

I wanted to stay, but my pride led me to go back. There was nothing to be afraid of now.

The next morning, though, my anxiety returned as I looked at the rough faces of the men in the dining hall at breakfast, trying to see if one of them had been the intruder of last night. They were a hardened lot, many of them surly and swollen-eyed from last night's drinking. Father himself looked a shade the worse for wear, though he had been all brisk attention and activity since he had heard of the man I had thought was Campbell. He marched with me between the lamp-lit tables, nodding at the somewhat surprised men as we passed by and making certain I got a good look at them all.

None of them was the man from the night before. I told Father that as soon as we reached our table. 'He's not here, Father. None of these men even has the same shade of hair, let alone the red beard. It must have been . . .'

'We'll talk to Vince,' he said quietly. 'Maybe someone's stayed away from breakfast.'

I looked around the room. There were several vacant places at two of the rough-hewn tables. Outside the open hatches that served as windows, the grey mist of early morning in the mountains was giving way to the rising sun. Justin had not come in yet. He was seeing to Frank Kelso, his patient with the shattered arm in the infirmary cabin.

I had awakened before dawn that morning to find that Justin was already up. From my window I could scarcely see him in the mist, but I knew that it was Justin from the way he stood, straight and slender. He was standing by the little stream that ran behind the cabin. I wanted to call out, but Father was still asleep. So I quickly slipped into my dress and put on my shoes and went out to the stream to join Justin.

He heard me coming. His face was almost bare of the lather from his shaving mug, which he had set down on a rock alongside the clear, shallow water. 'Short night,' he said with a smile. 'Be right with you.'

Shaving without a mirror, he finished the last few strokes and then bent down to the stream and rinsed away the remaining lather, then toweled himself dry.

'Had a talk with your father when he came in.'

'Oh? About the man we saw?'

'We mentioned that, yes. And nobody's seen Campbell, or so they said last night. If he's back here, he's hiding somewhere.'

I looked down the little slope towards the window where the man had stood, and I shivered. If Justin had not been there last night, or if I had not been awake . . . but I was not going to be foolishly afraid this morning.

Justin gave my hand a squeeze. 'Don't worry about it. They'll be looking for him. We're putting up some reward money that'll have even his best friend coming over to our side, not that he's likely to have any friends. From what your father says, he kept pretty much to himself while he was here.'

He paused, and for some inexplicable reason my heart began to beat faster. Why did my feelings have to rise up to the surface when he looked at me that way? With Steven I had been filled with emotion, true, but when we were not making love, at least, I could harden myself and keep him somewhere at a distance. With Justin it seemed to be just the opposite, My heart saw promises in his every move, and it seemed to leap at them.

'Your father and I also talked about you last night,' he was saying, and I felt a tightness in my throat. His eyes were steady as he went on. 'There are certainly more conventional places and times to say this, but somehow up here and now seems appropriate.'

He put his arm around me, glancing up at the mist-filled trees in the cool grey morning air before the sunrise.

I knew then what he was going to say. A hundred thoughts flashed through my mind all at once in the split second before he spoke: my doubts about Steven; my raging battle with Father; this strange new feeling I had known in Justin's carriage the night of the ball; a vision of the dark interior of the mill, where I had cradled Justin's head in my arms and stopped his bleeding. How strange, I thought, that he had scarcely courted me at all, and that as recently as last night I had promised myself to keep a well-guarded distance between us.

Yet now I felt that it was safe to give myself to him. Why? There might have been innumerable reasons, but none of them mattered. I knew; that was all. As surely as I knew anything, I felt the certainty that my future lay with this graceful, disciplined man.

I listened, knowing he would propose marriage and knowing that I would accept. I wondered if he would first apologize for believing what Steven Graybar had told him, but he did not.

It was just as well. I knew I had deliberately misled him, but that was something he did not have to know. I had been protecting myself against Father, that was all, and I refused to believe that would have changed his mind about me. No, what counted was the feeling we shared. That had been plain last night, and before that, and now as he spoke.

'Catherine, I'm in a strange position right now. People in Grampian don't know about my wife, and I don't particularly like talking about her, but before I go on I want you to know the situation.'

I nodded, more certain than ever that we were about to become engaged, but wanting him to tell his story his own way. Of course, I remembered what Mother had told me about his wife, so I didn't look at all surprised, I'm sure. I found myself thinking that I must seem terribly worldly, to simply nod my head when the man who has kissed me announces that he is married.

He told me that Elaine, for that was her name, had been placed in a sanatorium near Philadelphia for treatment of opium addiction, and that she had stopped being his wife, in his mind, long ago because of what she had done. In the eyes of the law, she would no longer be his wife within a matter of weeks, when the decree of divorce was awarded to him.

'There has been a delay - from her family. They're quite well off, and for some reason Elaine's been dead set against divorce ever since she first learned what was coming. So her lawyers have thrown up obstacles every step of the way.'

'Is she still in the sanatorium?'

He nodded. 'Green-meadow's the name of it. Very few people even know about it, let alone know where it is. They give her good care and a lot of attention. I really don't think she could function outside an environment like that - she certainly couldn't when we were living together, at least.'

'I'm sorry to hear that.' The words were automatic, so purely a conventional answer that I was almost embarrassed to have said them. Yet I could not very well say I was not a bit sorry that this Elaine was now safely locked away from him.

'Let's not talk of her. I only wanted you to know my background and position. I'll be free of her soon, a matter of one or two weeks at the most. And when that time comes, Catherine, I want you to marry me.'

It was so like him: straightforward.

I was caught off guard for a moment, even though I had been expecting the proposal. 'That's certainly a direct way of putting it,' I said.

'Would it make a difference if I gave you flattering speeches about your eyes or your character or about how lovely you are? Somehow I didn't think it would change your answer.'

'You're right,' I said, 'it wouldn't. I . . . I'll marry you, Justin.'

How smoothly handsome his profile was! Those blue eyes - how they made the spirit rise in me so that I felt bright, lively, as if I could perform wonders! Together, we could accomplish . . . what? Anything seemed possible. Grampian could not be the same again with the two of us together.

And when we kissed, the heady, dizzying glow made all other thoughts disappear, momentarily blotting out even the sound of the rising morning breeze.