Susan Johnson (31 page)

“And also sleep around,” Trey said pointedly, immune to the drama of her expression, “in your spare time. Buffalo Hunter, Gray Eagle, what—a dozen more? Dark skin excites you, doesn’t it? Maybe we could compile a list of sworn affidavits from your Indian lovers.”

“No one would believe them,” she replied calmly. “They’re Indians. My Lord, they live in the village in lodges.”

Trey’s eyes were chill. “But they’re good enough to fuck.”

She smiled. “Not quite as good as you, darling. But you’ve heard that before, haven’t you?”

Ignoring her compliment, he said very quietly, “Why me, Valerie?”

She didn’t pretend not to know what he was asking. Her beautiful face bore an ingenuousness he’d seen called into play before. “I love you, and I want to marry you, Trey. It’s as simple as that.”

“You don’t know what love is, Valerie. All you want is to be Mrs. Braddock-Black.”

“Is there a difference?”

He fought down an overwhelming impulse to slap her smug face. “How much, Valerie?” he said very softly, controlling himself … hard, “to find another father or take an extended vacation. Name your price.”

Her full lips he remembered very well, pursed into an affronted moue. “You’re a barbarian at times, Trey. And boorish to talk like some merchant.”

“But still civil enough not to call you the names I’d like to, Valerie. I don’t want to marry you.”

“But I want to marry
you.
”

“You can have the money without me.”

“All of it?” she said sweetly.

“Bitch,” he whispered, his jaw clenched tight in anger.

“One you didn’t mind making love to many times if you recall.”

He stared at her, his anger visible. “Had I known the price was marriage, there wouldn’t have been a first time.”

“Life’s been too easy for you, Trey, darling. Always everything you wanted. Every woman you’ve wanted. Unlimited wealth.” She looked at him from under half-lowered lashes and smiled faintly. “I thought I’d like to experience those sensations of surfeit myself. As your wife.”

“You’re a bold piece,” Trey said grimly. “I’ll give you that. But I’ll find a way out.”

“Dream on, sweetheart. You don’t seriously think this proposal being offered you was a spontaneous impulse, do you? I rather think you’ll discover that the ways out are nonexistent.”

“Whose child is it?” he asked abruptly.

“I wouldn’t tell you if I knew. For the record, it’s yours, of course, darling.” Cleopatra disclosing Marc Antony’s imminent fatherhood couldn’t have been more complacent.

“This can’t be happening,” Trey growled, his eyes like chips of ice.

“You’re the richest, handsomest bachelor in Montana,” Valerie declared with a smug certainty. “I’m the most beautiful woman. It’s really quite perfect.”

He looked at her and saw the beauty but also a cold, ruthless woman, as predatory as a tigress. “No!” he snapped.

“I’d like the wedding at Our Lady of the Hill … say, in three weeks. That should be sufficient time to get the invitations out. I’ll have the announcement put in the paper. The bishop has to be contacted. I’ll take care of that. Now, as far as the reception, perhaps the hotel isn’t large enough … it will mean reserving Claudio’s ballroom. Yes, Claudio’s will be perfect.”

“Never,” Trey said rudely, abruptly rising, not sure he could control his urge to strike her if he stayed. He’d always known Valerie was without scruples. He’d never realized the relentless enormity of her intent.

“With French champagne …” he heard her say as he opened the door. He was out of the house in a half dozen strides, more angry than he’d ever been in his life.

Hazard’s day with the judges wasn’t any better. Although they weren’t personally sympathetic to Trey’s problem after the disagreements over right-of-way, both would have been practical about accepting a “campaign contribution” on a case other than rape. In fact, both were overtly desolate at having to turn down Hazard’s generous offer. But if Valerie actually did bring rape charges into the open, the public outcry would far outweigh any judge’s decision on an indictment or trial. The Indians probably wouldn’t live out the week, and neither judge would ever be reelected again if they supported the Indians. Personal greed aside, there was nothing they could do for Hazard.

Father and son met for lunch in a private dining room at the Montana Club and compared their lack of success.

“They were all long shots,” Trey admitted wearily, and drained the whiskey in his glass.

“If it were anything but rape,” Hazard said with a sigh.

“And we weren’t Indian,” Trey added, cynicism softly prominent in his tone.

“There’s lots of ifs,” Hazard agreed. “If you weren’t wealthy …”

“And if Valerie weren’t greedy,” Trey muttered. “She’s talking about a wedding at Our Lady of the Hill.”

“Good God!”

“My sentiments exactly. In three weeks, by the way.”

Hazard looked at his son gloomily. “What about Empress?”

“I’ll have to try to explain.”

“I’m sorry,” his father said. “Your mother expects me to take care of this, you know.”

“She’s realistic, though. She knows that Gray Eagle and Buffalo Hunter, or whomever they accuse, don’t have a chance in hell if Valerie presses charges.”

“We could,” Hazard said on a pensive exhalation of breath, “kidnap both Duncan and Valerie and keep them up in the mountains. A great hue and cry might rise at their disappearance, though, if anyone else is party to this bloody blackmail. At best all we’d be doing would be buying some time in the hopes of their reconsidering. A negligent hope, I think, considering their greed. Duncan’s been cheating the government for years with his army contracts. He’s not the kind of man to be reasonable.”

“Valerie doesn’t know what the word means. Look, the marriage would be at most six months, maybe less.” Trey shrugged. “It’s not as though we have a choice. Now, all I have to do is somehow explain this all to Empress.” Trey slumped lower in his chair. “I need a drink.”

His father reached across the table and refilled his son’s glass. “In six months,” he said, “I’ll buy you a drink to celebrate your divorce.”

Lifting his glass, Trey smiled grimly. “Providing I don’t strangle her before the six months are up. Now, then, let’s go over all this one more time. Maybe we’re forgetting something. Could the entire clan move out of Montana temporarily?” Trey facetiously inquired, distaste laced through the words.

“I’m sure a migration of Indians and horse herds would be welcome anywhere in America,” Hazard replied sarcastically. “The government particularly recommends farming in the desert areas.”

“What if we killed them?” Trey said it for the first time in earnest.

“Duncan specifically warned against that suggestion,” his father replied. “Keep in mind that survival has been a primary concern of Duncan for years now with all the reservation Indians
he’s starved. Later,” Hazard promised quietly, “in extremity.”

“Can we rely on their word at all?” Trey asked next, refilling his glass. “I mean, not having this threat repeated?”

“That insurance we have signed in triplicate,” Hazard said with a great sigh of relief. “The document would stand up before the goddamn Supreme Court.”

Trey looked at his father over the rim of his glass. “There must be a but.”

“It’s post-dated.”

“When?” A brusque, curt inquiry into the length of his durance vile.

“Eight months from now, and even that required heated hours of negotiation,” Hazard replied tersely. “They started with five years.”

“Congratulations,” Trey said laconically, and emptied his glass.

“I reached for my Colts twice,” his father explained with a wry smile, “and it seemed to help.”

“Duncan has never been known for the firmness of his spine, although his bitch of a daughter more than makes up for his lack.”

“She does have an unabashed brazenness,” Hazard declared dryly. “When her father stepped out of the room briefly, she propositioned me.”

“I wouldn’t,” Trey replied sardonically, “linger in a room alone with her.”

“She seemed to take offense when I told her she was too old for my taste.”

Trey laughed. “That ingratitude probably cost you another million.”

“There was a certain aggrievedness to her expression,” Hazard said with a grin, “for the remainder of the negotiations.”

“So, then,” Trey drawled, “we can’t lose them, kill them, or repudiate them. And while all men are created equal, some, in this year 1889,” Trey went on cynically, “are more equal than others.” Leaning back in his chair, he automatically reached for the brandy bottle and said, “I’m sold away for eight months tops.” He carefully filled his glass
brim-high and lifted it to his father in salute. “Look at it this way … things could be worse. She could be the mother of my child.”

“You’re sure now she’s not?” Hazard declared gently.

“It is the only certainty in this entire Machiavellian deceit,” Trey said with a heartfelt sigh, “and all that saves my sanity.”

T
he children were all in Empress’s room when Trey walked in, so be spent a torturous hour making polite conversation, listening to everyone’s account of their activities that day, as well as listening to their myriad plans for their new future together, since Empress had ecstatically told them of their marriage plans. It was the very worst hour he’d ever experienced.

Recognizing his tenseness when the children’s clamoring quieted, Empress thoughtfully sent them out of the room to ready themselves for supper.

Trey immediately stood and restlessly strode to the window and back.

“Your trip into Helena was unproductive?”

“You might say so,” he murmured, lifting, then replacing, the hairbrush on the bureau top.

“Anything you care to talk about?”

“I’d rather not talk of it at all.”

“I’m sorry,” Empress apologized, Trey’s brevity and agitation unusual. “I didn’t mean to pry.” Just when she thought
she understood him, his mood would alter and he wasn’t the Trey she knew.

Trey looked at the woman he’d only just realized he loved. The only woman he’d
ever
acknowledged loving. She was rosy-cheeked today, her paleness gone for the first time since her illness. She looked fresh and wholesome, her tawny hair tumbled riotously on her shoulders, the crocheted lace on her nightgown and the ribbon-trimmed bodice making her appear very young. Her eyes were the vivid, clear green of a rain-washed meadow. And trusting.

The contrast with Valerie was sharp and abrasive.

“What I have to say …” Trey began in a deeply pained voice. He sighed and softly went on, “… has to be said.”

Empress’s stomach turned over with a lurch, and her fingers crushed the linen sheet. “I knew something was wrong.”

“It has to do with us,” Trey said, dropping into a chair near the bed. “Nothing that’s your fault,” he added quickly, seeing the dismay on her face. “It’s partly my fault,” he went on, sliding down in the chair and stretching his legs out in front of him. “And very much Valerie Stewart’s fault. You don’t know her”—he sighed again—“but I, unfortunately,
have
known her.”

“Tell me,” Empress said quietly, wanting to know where this was leading, although a crushing sense of doom engulfed her. Trey’s dark handsomeness was marred with a harsh grimness, his mouth a thin, taut line.

“What would you say to a six-month delay in our marriage plans?” Trey asked, his tone expressionless.

“Is that all?” Empress replied with joyful relief. It wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t disastrous. Her desperate fear receded. “I don’t mind. Summer’s a wonderful time for a wedding.” She smiled at Trey. “Don’t be so gloomy. Our plans can be rearranged. I love you; whether we marry this week or in six months is hardly earth-shattering.”

Trey wasn’t smiling, and Empress realized there was more.

“I haven’t told you the worst part,” he said softly.

Her joyful reprieve had been grasping at straws, and one look at Trey’s face told her to expect disaster.

“I have to marry Valerie Stewart.”

It was a thousand times worse than she’d imagined. Annihilation of her dream, a blotting-out destruction of a happiness
she’d only warily begun to accept. Several moments passed before Empress could find the breath to ask, “Why?”

“To save two of my cousins from hanging.” And Empress listened, horrified and appalled, as the story unfolded, as her future with Trey fell into ruin. He was melancholy but ultimately more optimistic than she. Empress had a feeling women like Valerie Stewart wouldn’t so easily be disposed of in six months’ time. Anyone shrewd enough to hold the Braddock-Blacks hostage wouldn’t be naïve about relinquishing that hold. Trey hadn’t mentioned the Absarokee alternatives to be used in extremity, so Empress’s reflections failed to take those into account. Disaster loomed.

“I don’t know what to do … what more to say,” Trey finished unhappily, feeling ill-fated, ill-starred, abandoned by his spirits of good fortune.

“You don’t have a choice. Marry her. The children and I will go back to Winter Mountain, and you can come for us in the summer.” Empress forced her voice to remain calm when she wanted to scream with pain. “I’ll tell the children—” Her voice broke, she swallowed, then went on resolutely, her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what to tell them.” A crushing agony was swelling in her chest. “I think they love you more than I do.”