Never Look Back (78 page)

His tone wasn’t sarcastic, so Matilda told him how it was. ‘It’s really worked, James. I planned on a good, clean fun place where men could take their wives and sweethearts, something different and good. I’ve done it too, it’s a landmark, the nearest thing this town has to an institution. I can’t tell you how many of the town’s leading businessmen have tried to persuade me to let them buy a share in it.’

‘But tell me, Matty,’ James said, looking at her curiously, ‘do you get invited to the homes of those businessmen? Do their wives receive you?’

‘I haven’t got time for such things,’ she snapped.

‘Then perhaps that’s just as well,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘Because if you had more time you might notice that your engagement book was rather empty.’

That remark was the last thing she wanted to hear, for it was something she knew, but chose to ignore. Smarting with humiliation, she dug her heels into the mare’s side, but instead of the horse taking it as a signal merely to move on, she took off at a gallop.

A gentle canter was one thing, but Matilda had no experience of riding at speed. She bobbed up and down in the saddle, holding on for grim death, in fear of being thrown, and not having the least idea how to slow the mare down, she tried to pretend she was enjoying it.

She must have gone a couple of miles before she heard James’s horse’s hooves right behind her. ‘Whoa!’ he called out, and galloping up alongside her, he reached over and pulled on her reins, bringing the mare to a halt. ‘Why do you do everything at
a gallop when you’ve hardly learnt to canter?’ he asked, grinning at her.

Realizing he knew perfectly well she wasn’t an experienced horsewoman added to her embarrassment. She released her right foot from the stirrup to dismount, but as she cocked her leg up, she realized too late that she should have taken the left foot out too, and she slithered down the horse’s flank, only to fall on to the ground, with her foot still caught in the stirrup.

James jumped off his horse and came rushing round to her, but instead of showing some concern, all he did was laugh. She managed to wriggle her foot out eventually, but only after exposing her entire leg to his eyes.

‘You arse-wipe!’ she screamed at him, jumping up to slap his grinning face. He dodged back from her, and her hand merely caught his arm. Maddened still further, she lunged at him to pummel his chest.

He caught hold of her two elbows and jerked her towards him, and suddenly he was kissing her. She struggled momentarily, but the warmth and softness of his lips made her yield, all fight in her gone. It was over five years since Giles had kissed her that last time as he left for St Joseph. But as James’s arms slid round her, pressing his entire body into hers, all those feelings of desire and passion she’d worked so hard on forgetting came back like a flood.

His tongue was flickering into her mouth, his hands were caressing her back, drawing her ever closer to him, till the buttons on his uniform dug into her breasts. She felt that old familiar hot surge inside her, and in that moment, if he had pushed her down on to the grass and taken her, she wouldn’t have resisted.

It was he who broke away first, still holding her tightly but burying his head into her shoulder. ‘I shouldn’t have done that, Matty. I’m so sorry’

She hadn’t for one moment expected an apology, and lifted his head up between her two hands so she could see his face. His expression was almost childlike, his mouth quivering, his eyes so soft, and she’d seen the same look just once before. It was the morning when Amelia was born and he’d climbed into her wagon to congratulate her. That day she’d seen it as just compassion, but somehow she knew it wasn’t that now, it was
something far deeper. ‘Well, I’m not sorry,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘I liked it very much.’

‘So did I,’ he whispered in a curiously strained voice. ‘But then I spent most of the time on the trail, and afterwards, imagining kissing you. If only I’d had the courage to do it then.’

‘I don’t remember you lacking courage,’ she said. ‘But things were different then, I was preoccupied with just getting to Oregon before my baby was born, and afterwards I was in no fit state to think of romance.’

He took her hands away from his face and stepped back. He looked so troubled, his expression made her think of Treacle when he knew he’d done something wrong. She thought maybe he felt guilty that he hadn’t come looking for her.

‘What is it, James?’ she asked softly. ‘I can see there is something you want to say. So just tell me. I don’t believe it’s too late for us.’

He didn’t reply, and his face became contorted as if in pain.

‘Tell me,’ she insisted.

‘I can’t, Matty,’ he said. ‘It
is
too late.’

It was as if the sun had suddenly gone behind a cloud. She couldn’t reply for a moment for a lump had come up in her throat which felt as if it might choke her.

‘You’re married now, aren’t you?’ she finally got out.

He nodded, looking at the ground.

For a moment she couldn’t speak. Instinct told her he had been in love with her, and if his kiss was anything to go by, he still was. Last night had been so very beautiful, so many times they’d just looked at one another and began to laugh about nothing. She had gone to bed hugging the thought of him to herself, so sure that she was on the very brink of something wonderful.

‘Why didn’t you tell me this last night?’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Why take me out, then ask me to come out riding with you today? Why, James?’

‘I was so thrilled to see you again,’ he said, still hanging his head and looking at her through his lashes. ‘All those feelings I had for you came back, within minutes it was just the way we used to be. I guess I just wanted to hang on to that for a little longer. If I’d told you immediately then suddenly it would have been polite, neutral conversation, and I couldn’t bear that.’

‘You mean I wouldn’t have danced with you,’ she said, sadly
thinking of that blissful feeling of being held close in his arms, for that was the point when she knew she’d stepped over the line from friendship to something more.

‘I didn’t plan any of it,’ he said with a touch of anger. ‘Whatever you might think of me please bear that in mind. It was just so good to be with you again, to hear about the children, how you got here, all the important things. But the longer we talked, the more difficult it became to tell you. Because all I could think of was that I should have ridden down to the Willamette Valley, found you and asked you to marry me.’

Matilda closed her eyes for a moment, she was remembering the way he’d tenderly tucked her into the canoe, and the sadness in his eyes as White Bear pushed off from the bank. She knew he was telling her the truth about his feelings, and in truth she was just as much to blame because she hadn’t seen it then.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

Matilda sighed deeply. ‘How sad this is,’ she said honestly.

‘I was going to tell you today,’ he said, looking right into her eyes. ‘I wasn’t going to creep away like a thief in the night if that’s what you are thinking. But just tell me one thing, Matty. Did you care for me on the trail?

‘You know I did,’ she said indignantly. ‘I never allowed myself to think of you in
that
way because of my situation, but you were a dear friend.’

‘And later, once you got to the Duncans’ place, did you spare any thoughts for me?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I was hoping you’d turn up. Tabitha and I often spoke about you.’

‘That doesn’t sound like the feelings I had for you,’ he said, reaching out and running his forefinger across her lips, his eyes scanning her face. ‘That’s also partly why I felt no real necessity to tell you immediately that I’d married. You see, you weren’t quite the same Matty I knew. You seemed so sophisticated and worldly. I thought we could renew our friendship, laugh about old times, and I would forget how much you’d once meant to me. But when you took off just now at a gallop, and then fell off the mare, it reminded me so much of the old Matty, headstrong, independent and so utterly beguiling. I just forgot myself.’

‘We’d better go back now,’ she said, feeling that she might just break her own rule and cry in public.

‘No, not yet,’ he said, catching hold of her arm as she turned back to her mare. ‘I can’t just let you go again, you kissed me as if you wanted me. We can’t leave it like that.’

She knew as she looked into those vivid blue eyes that she should deny any feelings, brush him off as if he was just one of many would-be lovers. But she couldn’t.

‘I do want you,’ she said simply. ‘But if you are married then there can be nothing between us. We must go back now, and try to forget the past.’

They rode back to town slowly, and James told her that he was due to take command at a fort in New Mexico. She wondered who he had married – his more gentlemanly manner and speech, and his earlier, rather prudish remarks suggested he’d found someone of his own class. But he didn’t speak of her, not even mentioning her name, and Matilda wasn’t going to ask.

James dismounted outside London Lil’s and came over to Matilda to help her down.

‘May I call on you if I come through here again?’ he asked. ‘Just as a friend.’

As he put his hands on her waist to lift her down she wanted to kiss him long and hard to give him something more than friendship to remember her by, but she resisted the temptation.

‘Of course, James,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘You will always be welcome.’

‘Give my love to Tabitha when you write to her,’ he said. ‘Tell her I hadn’t forgotten her, and send a kiss to Amelia.’

All she could do was nod. Somehow it said a great deal about the man that his last words should be for her children.

Zandra was sitting up by the parlour window as Matilda came in. Her old wrinkled face was alight with excitement, clearly she’d taken a good look at the Captain before he rode off, and liked what she saw.

Matilda threw her hat on a chair, and slumped down opposite Zandra. ‘He’s married,’ was all she could say.

Zandra didn’t make any comment for a while. She could feel the deep sorrow in her friend, see the hurt and bewilderment clouding her eyes. To Zandra marriage meant very little, her whole life had been spent with men who were committed
elsewhere, and she’d been glad of that because she’d had their love, and still kept her freedom to do exactly as she pleased.

But she knew Matilda wasn’t ready for her more cynical views, she was in the sway of passion, ripe for love, and to her this was another body blow. ‘I’m so sorry, Matty,’ she said in sympathy. ‘He looked so dashing and handsome, and I can imagine how disappointed you are.’

‘Disappointment doesn’t cover it,’ Matilda burst out. ‘I’m hopping mad, I wish he’d got himself killed out on a campaign, anything that would have prevented him from coming back into my life.’

Zandra nodded. It was a great many years since any man had stirred her emotions as Matty’s clearly were. But she remembered how it felt.

‘You don’t wish he’d been killed, and in a while you’ll be glad you saw him again, for he was a good friend when you needed one,’ she said soothingly. ‘Why don’t you book a passage home next month to see the children? It will be quieter once the men go back to the mountains for the summer. I’m perfectly capable of looking after things with Mary’s help while you are gone.’

Matilda nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘If only I’d been away and never seen him,’ she said. ‘Why is fate so cruel sometimes, Zandra?’

‘If I knew that I’d be the wisest woman in the world,’ the older woman said with a smile. ‘But I have learnt these things are sent to test us, and for every sad or terrible thing which happens we grow a little stronger.’

Matilda didn’t speak for some time. She was just staring out of the window, deep in thought. But eventually she turned back to Zandra. ‘What would you do about James, if you were in my shoes?’ she asked.

Zandra thought for a minute, torn between the truth and a more noble lie. Yet she couldn’t lie to her friend, she knew she would see through it.

‘I’d rush down into the town and find him,’ she said. ‘I’d tell him I wanted him as a lover regardless of him having a wife. I’d snatch every bit of happiness I could without any thought of the consequences.’ She paused and looked right into Matilda’s tear-filled eyes. ‘But I have the soul of a whore, Matty. I was never
the marrying kind, and I had very little integrity when I was your age.’

Captain Russell tightened up the straps of his saddlebags, then leaped gracefully up on to his horse. It was dark now, and he had intended to stay one more night in town before leaving at first light in the morning. But he knew if he did he would only go back to Matty, and if he did that he’d be lost.

He could see London Lil’s so clearly up on the hill, the bright lanterns all along the front of it were like a welcoming beacon, and so very tempting. He had spent the last six hours drinking whiskey, yet he was still sober, but perhaps that was because his drinking companions had kept bringing up Matilda’s name.

She was fast becoming something of a legend. He had heard about her deals with timber, and her friendship with the madam of a parlour house whom she now had living with her. He’d heard too about the whores she’d taken from the streets and given honest work. One man had said she was known to have given two failed miners their passage home and vowed she’d shoot them if she heard they’d stayed in town and left their wives and children alone for another winter.

He knew she paid her staff good wages, and she treated them well. Yet she was also said to be as cold as ice if anyone stole from her, or if her girls were found to be offering themselves for payment with her customers. The men he’d spoken to didn’t understand the reasoning behind that, they seemed to think she was foolish not taking a cut in such arrangements, nor did they really understand why she spoke out against slavery, or sympathized with the plight of the Chinese, Negroes and Mexicans who were treated as inferiors by everyone else.

These men thought her views peculiar at best, subversive even because she was giving other women ideas that they shouldn’t accept male dominance. But they still admired her. Her place was one of warmth on a cold night, of honesty in an increasingly dishonest town, of clean fun when everything else was diseased.