Rebellious Bride (36 page)

~~~

Rolfe rode hard, following the directions Jake had given him. He was furious with Lillian and frightened for her all at the same time. Once Evan and he had returned to the house, it hadn’t taken them long to determine the situation.

Lillian, being in a hurry, as usual, had insisted she leave immediately upon receiving Doc’s urgent summons. Jake had the buckboard hitched up, since she required supplies, and told her to wait a few minutes so he could accompany her. She hadn’t listened and had taken off on her own. Jake had saddled up to go after her, but an accident out in the east pasture had required his immediate attention and held him up. He had been about to leave when Rolfe showed up.

Rolfe had a devil of a time persuading Evan to stay at the ranch. He finally managed to make him understand that it was
his
score to settle with Cedric, and if for some reason he should fail, Evan should finish it for both of them, just as Evan had done when they were young and Rolfe was too little to defend himself. His big brother had always been there for him.

A scream pierced the cool air and turned Rolfe’s blood cold.

Lillian.

Rolfe urged his stallion on. The wind blew his unrestrained dark hair away from his face. His blue eyes were hauntingly brilliant in their intensity. His buckskins were molded to his heavily muscled body. His gun sat strapped and ready at his side. He looked nothing like a highborn nobleman from England.

Rolfe caught sight of his wife struggling frantically with Cedric. He reined in his horse, dismounted, and ran for the buckboard, Lil’s name spilling in a chilling cry from his lips. “Lillian!”

Cedric and Lil stopped their struggling simultaneously, both losing their balance at the same time. Lil reached out, grabbing thin air. Cedric followed, and they toppled to the ground together. Lil’s last thought before unconsciousness claimed her was how handsome her husband looked in buckskins.

“Stay back,” Cedric warned, waving a gun at Lil’s motionless body as Rolfe reached them. Cedric rested on all fours, the gun held in his right hand. His body wavered, the initial shock of his hard landing not yet having worn off. “Come near and I’ll shoot her.”

Rolfe took a step back. Fear ran through him. Lillian lay so still he thought she was dead. She had fallen hard, her body bouncing once before finally resting in absolute silence. With her hand on her stomach and her face in the dirt, he was unable to judge her condition, and that frightened him.

“Leave her alone, Cedric.”

He labored to stand, his head spinning and his body aching. “And what will you do if I don’t?”

Rolfe didn’t like the glazed look in Cedric’s eyes. He wore the look of a crazed man. “I’ll sign the estate in England over to you, if you leave her alone.”

Cedric wiped his brow and laughed, the gun in his hand no longer shaking, but aimed straight at Lil. “You fool,” he spat.

Rolfe, surprised by the vehemence in Cedric’s tone, stood his ground. He had no intention of moving any farther from Lillian’s side. “Explain why you think me a fool, Cedric.”

“Gladly,” he answered and kept the gun pointed at Lil. “You’re a fool simply because you never realized how much I hated you. Hated your wealth. And hated you for robbing me of the only woman I ever loved.”

Rolfe shook his head puzzled. “Of what woman do you speak?”

Cedric became enraged. “Beatrice! You fool. Didn’t you know my stepsister and I were lovers? I hated you for marrying Bea. I hated my father for forcing her into a wedding she didn’t wish just because he had uncovered our little secret. He warned me to forget about her and never to mention our passionate affair. But that was impossible. She was in my blood. I couldn’t get enough of her. Not even after you were married.”

Forgive me! Oh, God, please forgive me!
Rolfe heard Bea’s pitiful pleas echo through his mind. He closed his eyes for a brief second against his sickening thoughts. “Did she return this love willingly?” he asked, his voice so steady and calm it disturbed him.

Cedric laughed. A madman’s laugh. “She was reluctant at first. She felt it was a sin, since she was
now
married to you. She thought herself unfaithful, until I convinced her that no one could love her as I did.”

Rolfe’s stomach convulsed. Cedric was right. He was a fool. He should have protected Bea better.

“How does it feel to know your dear wife loved me? Me! That she loved the way I made her feel. That she often cried in my arms, begging me not to stop.”

With his tone taut Rolfe asked, “Was she begging you not to stop or
to
stop, so disgusted was she by your vile actions?”

“Shut up!” Cedric shouted. “She loved
me.
She loved
me
to touch her.
Me. Me. Me.
She carried my child. She died in childbirth with
my
child!”

Rolfe heard Cedric’s words and fought against them. The truth was so plain to see, but so hard to accept. He wanted to scream, to rage at Cedric, to strangle him with his bare hands until he pleaded with his last breath for him to stop. He wanted to hurt Cedric as badly as Cedric had hurt Bea.

“I prayed hard for her soul that night,” Cedric cried. “Bea had always made me promise to pray for her if she should die. She feared the thought of burning in hell for all eternity. So I prayed and prayed and prayed. I still pray for her poor soul.”

Lil had regained consciousness several minutes before and had heard most of the conversation. Her stomach threatened to revolt at the sickening story and at the horror of what poor Bea had had to endure. She forced herself to remain in control. Her child’s life and that of her husband depended on it. This offensive man would not claim two or possibly three more victims. She wouldn’t allow him to, and neither would Rolfe.

The conversation went on around her as her hand closed over the fat rock that her shawl-cushioned chest had connected with when she fell. With her hand trapped beneath her breast, she was able to reach for the rock and wrap her fingers around it.

One chance, she thought. She had but one chance to knock the gun from Cedric’s hand and give Rolfe enough time to take control of the situation. But was he capable of taking control? Could he fight? Could he draw a gun fast and fire accurately? She had no time to debate her decision. She had to trust that her husband was skillful enough to protect her without an ounce of trouble. She had to believe in him.

Roll over and throw, she encouraged herself. You’ll have only one chance. Shoot for accuracy.
Do it now!

Lil turned over in a flash, so unexpectedly that Cedric stared at her in horror as though she had risen from the dead. His shock immobilized him and provided her with the time necessary to aim. She hurled the rock, hitting his hand, and then she scurried to safety beneath the buckboard.

Relieved that she was safe, Rolfe blessed his unconventional wife a thousand times over and flung himself at Cedric. Anger gave him the strength of twenty men. He threw Cedric around like a rag doll, landing blow after blow.

Lil watched from her haven beneath the buckboard. Cedric was no match for her husband. Rolfe undoubtedly knew exactly how to handle himself, but she offered an extra prayer for his safety anyway.

Cedric attempted a valiant punch, and for a moment Lil squeezed her eyes shut against the blow she was certain would find Rolfe’s nose.

Rolfe ducked and sent a more stinging punch to Cedric’s nose, causing blood to run like a raging river down into his mouth.

“Broken,” Lil mumbled and continued watching.

Cedric began to stumble backward with each advancing blow Rolfe delivered. Lil was almost ready to crawl out of her safe nest and stop her husband, so fearful was she that he would beat the man to death.

Her interference proved unnecessary. Rolfe threw a final punch to Cedric’s bloody face, and the man crumpled like a dried cornstalk left standing too long in the wind.

Rolfe spun on his heels and rushed over to Lil. She smiled up at him as he approached. Her smile never faltered as she tore loose with a warning scream.

“Cedric!”

Lil remained paralyzed with fear as she watched Cedric raise his gun and aim it at Rolfe. Rolfe swerved around, drawing his gun from his holster with such lightning speed that it appeared a blur to Lil.

The loud shot echoed through the trees and surrounding hillside as Cedric crumpled for a final time to the ground.

“Where did you learn to shoot like that?” Lil demanded when Rolfe, after determining that Cedric would surprise them no more, reached under the buckboard to help her out.

“No ‘thank you for saving me, husband,’ especially since I had no business running off on my own in the first place’?” he said, carefully bringing her to her feet and holding her steady until she stopped wobbling.

“Don’t change the subject,” she warned, poking him in his chest and relishing the hard strength of him. He was alive. They both were, and it felt grand. “Now answer me.”

“No,” he said adamantly. “You answer me. Are you all right?”

“Of course I am,” she insisted. “But I want my answer. Where did you learn to fight and shoot like that? And why haven’t you ever told me about your skill with a gun or about your ability to ride a horse with such expertise? You made me believe you were incompetent on purpose. Why?”

Rolfe crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t make you believe anything. You assumed it on your own.”

Lil poked him again. “When you arrived here you were dressed like a fancy lord from England.”

“I am a fancy lord from England.”

A sudden thought stopped Lil from arguing with him. Instead she studied him with a frown. She had judged him instantly upon meeting him. She hadn’t bothered to look passed his exterior image. She had measured him solely on his appearance.

It was Rolfe’s turn to poke. And he did, gently, at the middle of her chest. “You immediately assumed I was an incompetent fancy-pants because I was dressed appropriately for my way of life, not yours. Therefore you presumed me unsuited to the rugged way of the West.”

“You weren’t very approachable,” she said defensively.

“A deliberate ruse. I needed to distinguish those people who were interested in being my friends from those who were merely impressed by my title and the purposes it might serve for them.”

“I suppose, given thought, your idea makes sense,” she admitted, thinking that she herself would probably approach her travels to a foreign land in an entirely different way, but Rolfe, she needed to remember, was a proper Englishman.

“But you still haven’t answered my question. Where did you learn your skills?”

Rolfe laughed. “You would approve of my teacher. He was an American whose skills with a gun and knife far surpassed any I had ever seen demonstrated. And his ability at riding was unique. He spent a year teaching me, and he taught me well. As for fighting, I picked those skills up myself.”

Lil looked at her husband with admiration shining in her green eyes. “You had no intention of failing here in the West.”

“Absolutely none,” he said. “I planned for everything.”

“Everything?” Lil said sweetly and stepped toward him. Now was the perfect time. No moment could be better than this to tell her husband how much she loved him. She caught the glint of delight in his delicious blue eyes and knew the time was at hand for both of them. She took another step forward.

The pain shot through her like a red-hot iron branding her skin. Her knees buckled, and her hand flew out to Rolfe. The only sound she could manage was an agonized moan.

Rolfe grabbed her instantly, his arm slipping around her to lean her against him. Fear and the once distant thunder that now rumbled overhead sent tremors through him.

“Lil?” he questioned anxiously.

Lil couldn’t respond. She was attempting to ride out the pain, which to her way of thinking was easing much too slowly.

“Lil?” he tried again, his supporting arm tightening around her.

In a rushed breath that was labored she said, “We’ve got a problem.”

“Bloody hell,” he mumbled and lost no time in lifting her into his arms and carrying her to the buckboard. He started to place her in the back, but her adamant protests halted his actions.

“I want to ride on the seat with you,” she insisted and locked her fingers together behind his neck.

“You’re being stubborn, Lillian. You’ll be safer and more comfortable in the back of the buckboard.” He noticed how, though already in his arms, she managed to tuck her body closer to his.

“I need to be near you,” she admitted softly and rested her forehead against his. “I feel safer when I’m near you.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you, Lillian,” he said, and yet he feared that her fate might not rest in his hands.

Lil tensed, another pain attacking her belly, and she buried her head in Rolfe’s neck.

“I’ll get you right home.”

“No,” she said, expelling the word with a releasing breath. “There’s no time. The cabin the cowhands once used for spring roundup is close by. Take me there.”

“But you’ll need help,” he argued.

Lil kissed his cheek. “I have you.”

“Bloody hell but you are a stubborn woman,” Rolfe said, carrying his wife into the one-room cabin.

“I am presently suffering no pain and see no reason why I can’t walk in here on my own and help you carry in a few light items from the wagon,” Lil argued.

Rolfe refused to comment, his thoughts occupied by the dismal appearance of the cabin. Never in his wildest imagining would he have thought his wife would deliver their child in such uncivilized conditions. One room, barely livable, contained a bed, a chest, two chairs, and a table littered with age-old food and dirty tin plates.

“This place needs to be cleaned before the delivery,” Lil stated, sounding not the least bit displeased by her surroundings. “Put me down and bring in the rest of the things from the buckboard. That black cloud that trailed us and the increasing thunder are sure signs that the sky is going to open up any minute.”

Rolfe lowered her to the floor, but remained by her side. His reproachful tone hinted at his displeasure with her orders. “You can’t mean to tell me that you intend to clean this place? And in your condition?”