The Willows (21 page)

Michael gave a short bark of a
laughter. “She seems to be doing just fine. You’re not her
watchdog, Lance. Like it or not, until the courts declare
otherwise, the lady is still my wife.”

“
Oh, the courts will decide
in our favor.” Uncle smiled coldly. “But, in the meantime, we will
not have you pestering my niece. We are prepared to overlook your
cheating, if you get yourself and that’s black beast off our land.
You have approximately ten minutes, Michael, before we summon the
law I’m certain you have no wish to be paying a call to our
jail.”

Michael’s fists clenched at his side.
“You people are incredible.” His gaze went to Gwen; she felt the
chill of it down into her bones. “You would think I had learned my
lesson by now, but I keep deluding myself into thinking you were
different. That somewhere deep inside you there is truly a
lady.”

“
How dare you” Lance yelled.
“I demand satisfaction in Gwen’s name.”

Rafe smiled with the same lack of
emotion. “How many times must weep eat this pathetic ritual, before
admitting the inevitable? I can defeat you a hundred times, and it
won’t make the slightest difference. Nothing has changed, has it my
lady? When or lose, right or wrong, you will always stroll off with
Lancelot.”

He left then, his posture stiffed and
proud as he descended the steps swung himself onto his
horse.

Prodded by a vague sense of guilt, Gwen
open her mouth to explain, but her uncle’s grasp tightened. “Come
along to the house,” he coaxed, nudging her towards the steps. “We
want you where Lance I can keep you safe and sound. I declare,
there is no predicting what that man will do next.”

Sound of his name, Lance stopped
glaring at Michael’s back in stepped up to take her arm, to help
herd her toward the house. Unable to resist a glance backward,
seeing Michael ride off, she felt a sudden, strong wave of regret.
For a wild, insane moments, she wished that he had swept her up and
carried her off.

But that was crazy, and she knew it.
Gwen should be happy that it ended neatly, grateful to have him
leave without a fight. As he’d said himself, they must all bow to
the inevitable. She was meant spent her life with Lance.

Tightening her arm around his, she
forced a smile strolled off with her Lancelot to the
house.

***

Muttering a low oath, Michael turned
his stallion toward the marshland, to the weather beaten shack on
the edge of the Bayou. As he approached the cabin’s old friend
Jeffery lived in, he thought of the day Gwen had surprised him
coming outs of it. Michael had deliberately picked a fight with
her, hoping she’d go stomping off, since he couldn’t risk the
McCloud’s learning that Jeffery was living in one of their
sharecroppers’ cabins. He’d wanted to protect what gap be had come
to consider his home, but also, more selfishly, Michael needed to
come here himself. He found it’s a good place to leave his horse we
had to go into the Bayou, a trip he put off too long
already.

An easily, thought of what might have
happened in his absence.

He stopped before the cabin,
dismounting with a shake of his head. Whatever had happened, Gabby
would soon let him know. Will got past the old Cajun, including
Michael’s own failings.

“
Michael” Jeffery waived
from the door of his shack, is grizzled face breaking into a smile.
“So where is she, this Gwen?” The smiled swiftly drooped. “It’s did
not go well?”

Tossing the breastplate and shield to
the ground, Michael climbed to the porch steps. “I hope you can
find use for this mental. I certainly don’t plan to use it again.”
Frowning, he untied the handkerchief from the breastplate. Even as
he jammed it in a pocket, he wondered why he did so.

“
You lost, no?”

Michael spun to face him. “No, I did
not lose. I won. Twice, in fact, but imagine my surprise when that
family did not honor their word.”

Jeffery shook his head. “This is
Michael, the man charged across the battlefield after that demon
Santa Anna? Until this old man you win, no? So I ask again, where
is this woman?”

“
Home, protected by her
family. I was railroaded out of town, Jeffery. Threatened to call
in the law.”

“
But, Michael, this woman,
we need her. You must go back and claim your prize.”

Michael felt ready to burst with
frustration. “You, of all people, no I cannot afford to be calling
attention to us now. God knows I cannot be spending even a night in
jail.”

Michael’s expression darkened. “There
are ways, you must find them. Your time, it runs short.”

***

Uncle gestured Lance to join him in the
library. Even tidied up, the man looked decidedly worse for wear,
but then, perhaps he could use his tattered condition in a bid for
Gwen’s sympathy. Lord new, they must play every card in their
hand.

“
Bourbon?” Jervis asked
unnecessarily, as he gestured Lance toward a chair. He didn’t wait
for a nod, but began pouring. “I must say, that was a masterful
stroke, accusing Michael of cheating. However did you manage to cut
your cinch without anyone seeing?”

“
Do you think I would stoop
to such behavior?” Lance stood, clearly affronted. “That I would
even need such a ploy? I was in no danger of being unseated by that
buffoon.”

Jervis could beg to differ, as would
anyone who else who had watched the competition, but it was not in
his best interest to argue now.

Seeing his hesitation, Lance bristled.
“Let me assure you, someone did cut my cinch. And I will bet my
mother’s gold, it was Michael.”

Jervis wished could be as certain of
the man’s guilt, but for the life of him, he cannot see why Michael
would risk getting caught. He not only had the skills to win
without cheating, he had the confidence. The man had come expecting
defeat Lance.

Yet clearly, someone had tampered with
Lance’s equipment if not Michael, then who?

It could be anyone, Jervis realized.
Lance wasn’t arrogant son of a gun, and a bit of a loudmouth. Any
of a long string of previously humiliated arrivals would be happy
to see him lose, and lose badly.

Still and all, Lance his horse and gear
having kept in secret at the stables. Only household members have
known their existence. An easily, he realized the guilty party
maybe one of the family. Hell, they would all had asked access to
the stables. Even Gwen herself.

Handing Lance a Bourbon, he cleared his
throat. “Sit back down son. I have a favor to ask. I’ll be needing
you to take care of some things, while I ride into town to see a
lawyer.”

“
Things?”

It was hard to curb his irritation, but
Jervis had no choice but to rely on this moron. “Must I spell it
out? Whether or not Michael cheated, my niece is married to him,
and he’s got her signature to prove it. Worse, he’s a handsome
devil, just the sort of romantic figure that Gwen would respond to.
I don’t know about you, but I sure thought she hesitated over long
when he asked her to go away with him.”

Jervis paused a moment, giving Lance
time to digest that before going on. “Now, unless you want to lose
her, and the Willows, don’t you think it is time you began courting
in earnest? Sweep her off her feet, dammit. Hell, take her to bed,
if you have to, but make good in certain her attention and
affections are locked on you. And while you are at it, I don’t
reckon it would hurt to let her know every sordid detail about
Michael’s past. Whether real or fake.”

Spending the Bourbon in his glass,
Lance smirked. “I don’t think she enjoyed hearing he was a
murderer, did she?”

“
No, she’s sure enough did
not, and I have every faith you can relish to tell further. Just
remember that whatever you tell you must somehow put you in a
better light. Let that little girl know you are the man she should
marry. Tell her you are far too impatient to wait any longer, that
you’re anxious to wed her the instant her annulment is
fact.”

“
Gwen will be no problem.”
The smile faded. “It’s your brother who worries me the
most.”

With good reason, Jervis thought
painfully, knowing how much John despised lance. “No call to worry
about John,” he said instantly. “Just keep giving him Bourbon.
There is not a blessed thing he can do. If he’s too drunk to see
what is going on. Hell, haven’t you even paid attention? That’s how
I kept getting around him all these years.”

Smiling, Lance reached for the bottle
and waved it in the air. “Maybe I will just go have the little
chats with Gwen then, before I go on and cozy up to her
father.

Eyeing the Bourbon, Jervis thought of
the doctor’s prognosis in the liver rooting away in his brother’s
body. “You do that,” he told Lance with a smile. “And mind, there
is more in the cellar.”

***

Gwen eased the horse outs of the
stable, leaving her quietly out of sight of the house. If she could
just reach the playing field undetected, then she could mount.
She’d have preferred lances silver horse, with its speed and
endurance, for she needed to ride mindlessly through the night to
read her mind – and body – of all of these disturbing images.
Unfortunately, uncle had taken the horse more than an hour ago for
his trip into town.

No sooner had he gone then Lance came
to her, starting his talk against the threat he felt Michael posed.
It was not safe, he insisted, for Gwen to go anywhere on her own.
That demon Michael could be waiting, any time, any place, ready to
punisher for not going off with him.

Her longing to ride undisturbed across
her father’s fields increased a hundredfold, with each word Lance
had muttered.

She tried to protest, knowing Michael
did not think are worth the effort to punish. A mistake, for Lance
had gone on to catalog every sin mortal man had ever committed,
laying each at Michael’s door. Did she realize how many men the man
had killed, playing mercenary for the Texans in the fight against
Mexico? Or the river of blood spilled, as a hired gun in the
goldfields of California? And don’t forget the dual, the challenges
to his honesty while gambling at cards. Why, they’re good friend Bo
might have counted himself one of Michael’s corpses, had his family
not pulled him off to mobile before he could meet Michael beneath
the Oaks in city Park.

Gwen must face facts. Michael was a
bitter man, the dirt poor son of a farmer with neither soul nor
conscience. The man had come seeking revenge, and Gwen had deprived
him of it, but that did not mean he would not return in a mindless
fury. She was saving here with family, but where she’d to give
Michael slightest chance, he would happily make her regret
it.

Gwen must stay in the house under his
protection, unless she wished to end up like her mother.

Seeing her shiver, Lance and then put
his arms around her, but neither his smoothing words, nor the kiss
that followed, offered the least comfort. Oddly unsettled, she’d
been relieved when he’d mentioned that he must go to talk with her
father.

The very instant he had gone, she had
race to her room to jam herself into her childish habits. She knew
this was the unladylike behavior her parents had deplored–she had
often defied them as a child by creeping down the back stairs and
out of the house–but it cannot be helped. She might be a woman now,
but she felt as if she were flying through a swamp of conflicting
emotions. She knew no better way to break free, then by riding her
horse as if the very hounds of hell were behind her.

In her desperation to be away, she
dismissed all thoughts of danger. Even if Lance were right, even if
Michael had nothing better to do with his time then lie in wait in
some distant field on the off chance she would appear, well, she
was an accomplished writer. She knew this plantation like both
sides of her hands. Let him come, she thought defiantly. This let
him try to outright her.

A gust of air blew through the leaves
overhead, and the horse stood on easily. Feeling a chill at the net
of her neck, Gwen shivered, then felt foolish. Not even a demon
like Michael would be outs on such a night, she told herself as she
tugged the horse forward. The way the mists swirled in the
gathering breeze, she would be lucky if she was not soon drenched
in a downpour.

With relief, he came upon
the playing field. The nearly full moon shone brightly,
highlighting the patches of ground far too with a silvery glow. The
mist crawled up around the grandstand, skewering the tawdriness,
shrouding the banner that had come loose on one side.
Honor and glory.
Remembering Michael’s accusations, she wondered if it was
fitting that the family crest should dangle there, limp and
hopeless, like a symbol of all her lost dreams.

How fanciful, she told herself sternly.
Nothing was lost; and all she had ever wanted. All she had to do
was go back on her word.

Reaching for the reins, she was about
to climb up in the saddle, when she noticed a white scrap in the
dirt. She leaned down, lifting up her trampled handkerchief, the
one she had given Lance. Odd to find it here. During his tirade
tonight, Lance had claimed he still had it in his possession, that
he would treasure it always as a token of her support.