said,” he added very quietly, holding her eyes, “close the door.”
She tried one last time. “It’s improper,” she said.
“In this house, in the absence of my father, I decide what is and is not improper. Do as I say.”
His look was calculating. Amelia almost rebelled. But she was tired and worn. She gave in and gently closed the door.
Something flashed in King’s eyes before he averted them to the ashtray in which he flicked ashes from his long cigar. He’d hoped to prod her temper, to see if she had reserves of that spunk he’d seen only once, when she was with Marie’s children. But he couldn’t make it happen. Perhaps she really was the weakling she appeared to be when her father was close by.
Amelia sat down in the chair facing the desk, on its very edge, with her hands clutched together in her lap.
“I went into town today. I met an acquaintance of your father who asked if Alan’s engagement to you had been announced.”
She was shocked. “What?”
“It seems that your father has in mind inciting my brother to marry you,” he said without preamble. “And that he has advertised this intention to certain of his acquaintances in banking.”
Her lips opened to protest, but she saw the uselessness of it. “Whatever my father’s intentions, Alan is only my friend,” she said. How could her father have been so indiscreet?!
King’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Be his friend, by all means, if it pleases you. But marriage is out of the question,” he added deliberately. “I strongly advise you to repulse any attempt my brother may make to form an alliance with you.”
She worked at composing her face. “May I ask why?”
“My brother needs a strong woman,” he said simply. “You have hidden talents, I admit. But you are hardly my idea of the modern woman. Your father tells you how and when to breathe, Miss Howard,” he added coldly, leaning forward to spear her with his gaze. “A woman who is so easily led by a parent will be quite unable to cope even with a man as genteel as my brother, much less with life on a ranch the size of this one.”
He seemed to think nothing of piling insults on her head. She could hardly believe what she was hearing.
“Mr. Culhane, your brother and I are friends,” she emphasized. “I assure you that he no more wants to marry me than I want to marry him. As to the other, my father has said nothing of this to either of us, I assure you!”
He was watching her with that steady unblinking stare that made her fidget nervously. “And if he had, what would you have told him?”
She went very still and averted her face.
He saw the faint movement of her body. “Why are you afraid of your father?” he asked curtly.
The question rattled her. “You are mistaken,” she faltered.
“Am I?” He lifted the cigar to his firm mouth, still holding her gaze. “My mother tells me that she has invited you to the Valverde fiesta Friday evening.”
“Unless you object … ?”
“It would be dangerous to leave a young woman here unattended. Of course you will accompany us.” His eyes narrowed speculatively. “Perhaps we can find a suitable young man to escort you.”
She stood up very calmly. “I do not require an escort, but thank you, Mr. Culhane, for your consideration.” Let him chew on that for a while, she thought with faint triumph.
He leaned back in the chair again, watching her. He always seemed to be watching her, she thought.
“Quinn said that you never kept company with a man,” he remarked abruptly.
“There was no time for such frivolous behavior,” she replied as she moved to the door. “I had younger brothers to take care of, until they died, and the house to keep.”
“Your mother did very little.”
“My mother was an invalid,” she said with a faint sharpness to her tone. “She was unable to care for the house.”
He was silent. The cigar sat smoking in his lean hand. Her carriage was very proud, he noted. She had an innate dignity about her that sat oddly beside her cowardice.
“You are twenty. It is time you married.”
“So long as my choice falls short of Alan,” she agreed.
He glowered, looking for sarcasm in her lovely face, but it was calm and quite composed.
“I have plans for Alan.”
“So he tells me,” she replied. “You and my father are two of a kind, Mr. Culhane.”
“An insult, Miss Howard?” he asked.
She turned to the door. “You must apply your own interpretation.”
She left him without waiting to be dismissed, closing the door quickly behind her. Her heart was hammering as she went to rejoin Mrs. Culhane in the kitchen. The odd little exchange left her breathless and exhilarated. No man of her acquaintance had ever had the effect on her that King Culhane did.
* * *
The week passed slowly. Amelia and King’s mother sewed, worked in the kitchen garden, and did the routine chores, like washing clothes. Wash day was a long and drawn-out chore that took almost a full day every week. It involved some heavy lifting, so assistance from two of King’s men had to be requisitioned. They had to fill the huge washtubs with water for washing and rinsing, and the big black kettle on the fire had to be replenished with water and bleach for boiling the white things to get them clean.
At least twice a week, chickens were killed and cleaned and cooked, not only by Enid but also by the small, wizened man who cooked for the cowboys in the bunkhouse. A calf was often butchered for the men, with some for the household kitchen as well. Other meats, from hogs butchered the past fall and made into sausage and hams, and steers, hung in the smokehouse until they were needed. Breads and canned vegetables from last summer’s harvest constituted the major part of meals. That would be true until the garden that had been planted earlier in the month was yielding fresh vegetables.
* * *
King spent long hours in the saddle and away from the house, to Amelia’s eternal gratitude. She was very relaxed when she didn’t have to worry about the sharp side of King’s tongue.
In fact, without her father’s fearful presence, she was like a different woman. She was relaxed and gay. Enid noticed the sudden change with sly interest, but she never said a word.
Amelia took a few minutes late one afternoon to gather some early spring flowers in the meadow under the mesquite trees. It was a lovely March day, just the right temperature, with the sun making soft shadows on the ground. She felt free as she gazed at the high peaks of the mountains in a chain around the horizon. If only she could jump on a horse and ride away, far away, and never have to worry about her father’s health again!
But
