Susan Johnson (28 page)

* * *

It was two in the morning when they rode into the ranch yard. Outriders had raced ahead to see to preparations, so the entire household was out to greet the weary party.

Trey issued instructions for the children’s care, then introduced Guy, the only one of Empress’s family still awake. Eduard, Emilie, and Genevieve were sleeping, wrapped in buffalo robes and carried by three of the search party. They were carried into the house and put to bed in the nursery. Guy followed Trey upstairs in the wake of the doctor, who had quickly ordered Empress inside.

Hazard and Blaze had been summoned home when the outriders reached the ranch and had been waiting since midnight.

After Empress had been put to bed and the doctors and nurses brought up from Helena were watching over her, Trey helped Guy settle in for the night. “She’ll be fine now,” Trey said, having to reassure the young boy, terrified he might lose his sister, although the awful dread was starkly prominent in Trey’s own mind. She hadn’t responded to his voice as she lay in his large bed; she was too white and too still, and it took every ounce of self-control he possessed to appear calm in the presence of the young boy.

His first reaction had been to grab the doctors by the shoulders and demand they cure her. His second reaction had been to threaten them. “I’ll kill you,” he wanted to say, “if she dies.” Only tight-leased restraint kept him from losing control But to the servants familiar with him, his voice had been too quiet, the set of his jaw alarming. And to the officious doctor who had addressed him last, only the servants realized how close he’d come to violence. “I’ll be back,” he had gritted out to the doctor, who suggested he leave everything to them, and Trey turned away abruptly, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Blue had gently urged him out of the room. “Guy is dead on his feet, Trey. You’d better help the boy to bed.”

And in more diplomatic terms Blue discussed with the doctors the approach less likely to offend his cousin. They were reasonable men; Hazard paid splendidly for their time.

A late supper had been set in the library, and when Trey came down after seeing Guy to bed, his parents asked the questions that could be politely asked. Trey was obviously worried about Empress, exhausted, dark shadows under his
eyes, the strain of his journey out manifest in every line of his lean body, now slumped in the chair opposite them. He was high-strung with nerves, his voice fluctuating from agitation to weary lassitude. They didn’t have the heart to bring up the unsettling visit Hazard had had yesterday from Duncan Stewart. Trey had enough ominous uncertainty in his life at the moment without burdening him with Duncan’s oppressive news.

They all sat up that night, since Trey wouldn’t think of sleeping, restlessly coming down at intervals for coffee, spending most of the night at Empress’s bedside. The doctors worked feverishly all night, bringing Empress’s temperature down with ice packs, fearful of convulsions with her elevated readings.

Trey sat at her bedside, gimlet-eyed when watching the doctors, like a literal dark spirit of vengeance. The quality of her care under that dangerous stare was first-rate, and toward morning Empress’s breathing became less labored; her temperature had dropped. Trey fell asleep in his chair, his hand curled around Empress’s.

“What are we going to do?” Blaze asked Hazard wearily, snuggled under his arm on the sofa near the fire. “Trey cares about Empress. It’s plain to see. Blue said he almost threatened the doctors upstairs. How sure was Duncan about—” Her words ceased uneasily. The fact that Valerie was naming Trey the father of her coming child was still too unsettling to put into words.

“It doesn’t matter,
bia
, whether anyone’s sure or not.” And Hazard had immediately gone to the village to inquire into the other allegations Stewart had brought up—the possible rape charges leveled against Gray Eagle and Buffalo Hunter if Trey didn’t agree to marry Valerie. Both men had been intimate with Valerie, but there had been no coercion. On the contrary, Valerie Stewart was provocatively aggressive. Not that any of that mattered, as Hazard had already known. If a white woman accused an Indian man of rape, there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be acquitted. The men could disappear, of course, but Duncan and Valerie had presciently considered that contingency. Duncan had in Hazard, in a perfectly
modulated voice, unembarrassed by his flagrant blackmail, that should the correspondents disappear, Valerie would simply name some other man in the clan. It made no difference to them. Hazard stroked Blaze’s shoulder, a gentle, soothing pressure that eased the tension in the back of her neck. “Don’t worry, love, there’ll be a way out.” But the words chilled like a lie, even as he spoke them.

An hour later Trey came bounding into the room, buoyant with cheer. “I’m going to shave and clean up,” he declared. “Empress opened her eyes. I think she knows where she is. I told her the children were all sleeping, and she smiled. She looks terrible, but she looks wonderful!” His statements were ecstatic, as though these mundane pronouncements were measured profundities, universal and cogent. “Gotta go.” He waved a lighthearted good-bye and bounded back out of the room.

His parents smiled nostalgically at each other. “That’s love if I ever saw it,” Hazard said. “The boy was damn near ready for a doctor himself a few hours ago. I’ve never seen him so tired. And now—” His smile disappeared like the ending of his sentence, and he sighed. “I think we’ve got trouble on our hands.”

“You have to do something, Jon. He’s never going to agree to Duncan Stewart’s demands. This is just like Carl’s threats again. You know what Trey said about that. He wasn’t the first or the only one. Charlotte Tangen had other lovers too. Her child may nor may not have been his. You see, it’s the same all over again.”

“You don’t have to convince me, darling. I’ve heard it all before.” In fact, he’d heard it many times before, although Blaze was unaware of any but Charlotte. The situation had upset her so, Hazard had shielded her from the others. And occasionally, if bits of gossip reached her ears, he’d discounted them as small-town rumor. “Now don’t fret,
bia.
I’ll do everything I can.”

“I want him to be happy.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that, love,” Hazard said dryly. “He’s been pursuing happiness rather diligently for years.” He knew how much Trey meant to Blaze. Their only child. And he loved Trey as much as she. But Blaze was his touchstone, his life, and it grieved him to see her unhappy.
“Leave it to me,” he said gently, bending his head to give her a kiss. “We’ll work this out.” Somehow, he thought morosely. “Let’s get Empress well first,” he went on, “then Trey can concentrate on another problem. I can put Stewart off for a few days. No one knows Trey’s back yet. If I give orders, we can keep the news from spreading for at least a day or so.” Hazard was realistic about secrecy in a household with several dozen servants. He’d give it two days on the outside before all of Helena, Montana, knew Trey was back.

T
he children were all perfectly behaved at breakfast, with the exception of Eduard, who blithely ignored Genevieve’s whispered commands and repeated in his high, piping voice, “Pee pee inside, pee pee inside.” Trey interpreted Eduard’s new enthusiasm toward his parents as childish fascination with the indoor plumbing. He had, in fact, spent the previous hour flushing the toilet in the nursery, embarrassing his older sisters half to death. And all three older children were pink now with the disconcerting direction of Eduard’s conversation at breakfast. Hazard and Blaze put everyone at ease with interesting questions of the children’s farm up-mountain, and once Eduard was distracted by the sight of frosted cinnamon rolls, his conversation took a more socially acceptable turn.

After breakfast everyone trooped upstairs to see Empress, who although weak, was much improved. Her temperature had decreased dramatically, and she’d managed to keep down some chicken soup, but she was very pale, her delicacy emphasized by the size of Trey’s bed.

Trey’s parents were pleased to have her back, and pleased, they told her, to have the opportunity to meet her family. More vulnerable in her frailty, Empress almost broke into tears at their kindness but was diverted by Eduard’s pithily significant announcements on the state-of-the-art plumbing. Empress giggled; Genevieve said, “Really, Eduard, you’re such a child!”; and Trey cordially pointed out they had at least a month’s worth of entertainment in the house for Eduard with ten bathrooms.

After several more minutes one of the three nurses in the room began clearing her throat with pointed glances at her watch. Blaze suggested the children go to the nursery with her and Hazard and see if any of the toys were still in repair. The room was cleared in under a minute. Even Guy and Emilie, who on occasion saw themselves as adults, had been awestruck at the array of toys neatly shelved on the nursery walls. In a minute more, an explicit glance from Trey sent the nurses from the room.

“Do you mind?” he asked, pulling up a chair near the bed. “I wanted to be alone with you. And those three nurses, I’m sure they are wonderfully competent, but they look like they should be on the pediments of Notre Dame. They’d scare me into getting well, I’ll tell you.” Trey gently touched Empress’s hand, then twined his fingers in hers and smiled. “It worked, right? You’re feeling better.”

Empress smiled back at the tall, powerful man who was holding her hand as though it were rare Ming porcelain. “Much better, and my hand won’t break.”

Just to show he could be objective about the state of her health, he gave her hand a squeeze that wouldn’t have ruffled the down on a chick. “I know, dear. You had me worried, though.”

“I’m afraid I was a tremendous trouble to you, although apparently the children see it all as a great adventure, now that it’s over. If you hadn’t made those snowshoes …”

“We would have thought of something else.”

Although he’d politely used
we
, Empress knew that without Trey at their farm, none of them would have been able to leave in the deep snow. And while the fever may have run its course without incident, she was grateful to Trey for taking the burden off Guy. He was too young at sixteen to have
such adult concerns. “I’m in your debt,” she said with a quiet gravity.

“I think I like the sound of that,” Trey replied with a grin. “You’re rarely so docile.”

“It must be the fever,” Empress answered, her smile lighting up the green of her eyes.

“Whatever it is,” Trey said, his tone once again serious. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. I’ve never felt so … helpless. I didn’t know what to do.”

“
You
should be careful. This fever is what killed Mama and Papa last summer, and it hasn’t been so long since you’ve recuperated.”

Trey shrugged. “I never get sick.” And it was true. With the exception of the shooting at Lily’s and the occasional cold as a child, he’d been remarkably healthy.

“Don’t sound so smug,” Empress chastised. “I used to say that, too, and look at me now.”

“You were run-down after nursing me, then the long trip home. It was too much. Now you mustn’t think of doing a thing. Just eat, sleep, and rest. Leave the children to me.” He grinned. “You may have noticed, we get along—tolerably well.”

“The man has a modest bone in his body, after all.” Delight was in her eyes and voice, a touch of color defining the gentle curve of her cheek.

“I’m hurt,” Trey mocked, elegant in soft kid boots, navy wool trousers, and a foulard shirt in tones of navy and wine. “Don’t I simply exude modesty?”

“Never in memory.” And she wondered suddenly what he’d looked like as a child, or an adolescent, before the insouciant sophistication.

“You’re not exactly unassuming, yourself, Countess.” Trey knew of Empress’s aristocratic family, had heard the story of her father’s duel, their flight, the hard years following in Canada and Montana.

“If I were unassuming, you’d be bored to tears.”

“True,” Trey replied with a ready grin, aware he’d never been so happy, aware Empress had become immeasurably important in his life, conscious during the long trek back when he feared she’d die that his life would be desolate without her. “Have you ever considered …” He paused, realizing with
sudden shock that he was about to express himself in a way he’d been prudently avoiding for years. “I mean …” He detoured once again, caught off-guard by new emotions, years of experience putting up a last resistance. “We get along”—his glance was warmly amorous—“famously.”

“Agreed,” Empress said, her own glance affectionate. Always independent in her thinking, she’d accepted her newly discovered sexuality as a wonderful added pleasure to her life.

“So then …” Trey cleared his throat, and for the first time Empress realized that this conversation was not frivolous banter. Her heart skipped a beat. Was it possible Trey’s feelings were as intense as hers? Was it possible the most eligible bachelor west of the Red River had stopped playing games? “I was thinking …” he went on.

She could have made it easier for him, but if she was mistaken, the embarrassment would be terrible, so she remained silent, although her pulse rate was peaking.