the piano, Miss Howard,” Brant addressed her, smiling. He was very like Alan, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with an olive complexion. He and Alan were tall, but King towered over them both. King’s eyes were a light, silvery gray, deep set with thick lashes. His face was more angular and lean than those of the other men in his family, square-jawed with a straight nose and high cheekbones. He had a lithe, predatory way of walking that made Amelia’s heart race.
“Of course she plays,” Hartwell answered for his daughter. He gestured toward the spinet. “Play some Beethoven, Amelia.”
Amelia got up obediently and went to the piano. She couldn’t look at King as she passed him, but she felt his eyes on her every step of the way. Disconcerted by the unblinking scrutiny, her slender hands trembled on the keyboard as she began to play, and she made one mistake after another.
The sudden slam of Hartwell Howard’s fist on the flawless finish of the cherry side table made Amelia jump. “For God’s sake, girl, stop banging away at the wrong keys!” Hartwell roared, disconcerting his host and hostess, not to mention Amelia. “Play it properly!”
She took a steadying breath. Her father’s temper had a visible effect on her. But behind it, she knew, there was something much worse than temper. She shot a quick glance at him. Yes, his eyes were glazed, and he was holding his head. Not tonight, she prayed. Please don’t let him die here … !
“Well, what are you waiting for?” her father raged.
“Possibly for you to stop, so that she can concentrate on her music,” King remarked. His voice was pleasant enough, but the look that accompanied it made Hartwell stiffen.
As if he realized that he’d overstepped himself, Hartwell sat back on the sofa. He touched his temple and frowned as if he were trying to think. He glanced at Amelia. “Go ahead, daughter, play for us,” he said, and for an instant he was the kind, sweet father she’d adored.
She smiled and let her hands rest on the keys. Then she began to play. The soft, building strains of the “Moonlight Sonata” filled the room, swelled like the tide, ebbed and flowed as she let the music become an expression of the turmoil and pain and longing in her own heart.
When she finished, even her father was silent.
She looked up into turbulent silver eyes that were far too close. She hadn’t heard him move.
“You have a gift, Miss Howard,” he said quietly and with faint surprise. “It was a privilege to hear you.”
“Yes, indeed,” Enid enthused. “I had no idea you were so talented, my dear!”
Other praise fell on deaf ears. Amelia had heard nothing past the soft words King had spoken. But beyond that was the darkness growing again in her father’s eyes as he finished his drink and his host rose to refill his glass. Her heart raced with fear.
“May I be excused, do you think?” Amelia asked Enid quickly.
“Nonsense,” Hartwell said coldly. “You’ll stay and be sociable, my girl.”
“Papa, if you please,” she tried again, her dark eyes wide with apprehension.
“I do not please,” he replied. His eyes were growing glassier. “Remember your promise to obey me, Amelia,” he added with a soft warning, and his face tautened.
She could hardly forget when the promise had been made and the fierce blow that had prompted it. But now, Quinn was nearby. She had to remember that. If she were careful, and smart, she could circumvent her father’s violent outburst. She’d done it before, many times. She knew of only one way.
“Alan, you promised to show me the roses, did you not?” she improvised with a shy smile in the younger man’s direction. No one could see, in her position, the desperation in her eyes.
“Indeed,” Alan replied. “Shall we, my dear?” And he proffered his arm.
She took it with cold, numb fingers, smiling as she followed him blindly from the room, dreading the impact of her father’s voice if he objected. But she was betting that he would not. This was what he wanted.
And miraculously, he did not object. He turned and began discussing the weather with his host. He wanted Amelia to become involved with Alan. He had in mind a merger of families. Naturally he didn’t protest.
“I’ll join you, if you don’t mind,” King said lazily, and fell into step beside them.
He pulled an imported cigar from his pocket and struck a match to light it. In the glow, his face had a hardness that Amelia had never encountered in any other man. But patently, he didn’t approve of her friendship with Alan. Perhaps he sensed her father’s plan and intended to put a quick end to it. Certainly, his opinion of her was made evident at every turn.
“Where did you learn to play like that, Amelia?” Alan asked gently, glaring at his brother.
“I had a private tutor,” she replied. “Papa feels that young women should be artistic.”
“And mindlessly obedient, obviously,” King added carelessly.
“King!” Alan snapped. “Pray keep your opinions to yourself.”
“Since Miss Howard is so obviously the obedient slave of her parent, suitors must be in short supply.” He took a draw from the cigar and in the semi-darkness of the patio with its surrounding rose gardens, there was a cold glint in his silver eyes. “Not so, Miss Howard?”
Amelia despised him. The two small confrontations with him this evening had softened her toward him, and now when he sensed she was vulnerable, he decided to attack. How could she have forgotten his opinion of her?
“You must think what you like, Mr. Culhane,” she said with quiet dignity.
“Really, King, hasn’t she endured enough tonight?” Alan asked impatiently.
“If she hasn’t, then I certainly have,” King replied with faint contempt. He made her a brief bow. “Good evening, Miss Howard.”
She stared after him with bloodless lips, so tightly compressed that she thought she might never again be able to open them.
“He is impossible at times,” Alan said gently. “Don’t let him upset you, Amelia. He likes to bully people. It appeals to his sense of humor,” he added coldly.
Amelia glanced at him covertly, reading the resentment and dislike in his expression. Alan was the youngest son and the last to be considered. King was the eldest, and the middle brother, Callaway, was off prospecting in east Texas. Alan stood in King’s shadow and knew that he always would. Amelia felt a kind of kinship with him, because certainly she would always stand in her father’s. She would never have a moment’s peace or independence or freedom while her father drew breath. Not, she thought, that she would wish him dead. She only wished that things were as they had been when her little brothers were alive. Had her father been in a better condition, or absent, she was certain that she’d have lobbed a big rock right at King’s arrogant head.
She forced her busy mind back to Alan and listened with every appearance of interest to his stories about the ranch. But inside she was dreading the end of this visit when she would have to return to town. Right now they were living in a boardinghouse where the presence of other
