It eased his groin. He knew damn well she wasn’t teasing him, had no idea of her effect on his libido, knew she didn’t masturbate and fantasize about him. He debated fucking Molly, or any one of a dozen passable maids in his employ, but decided the self-inflicted torture was welcome—he deserved it for his depravity. He must find her a husband immediately—and get her the hell out of his house and his life.
By the time he had finished the glass of whiskey, he had an overwhelming urge to see his son. Just thinking of Chad, upstairs, asleep, well fed, well cared for, and loved, brought a rushing warmth to his insides, something the whiskey could never achieve. In case Chad awakened, Nick wrapped his hand in a linen handkerchief, so as not to scare him with the blood. He silently moved upstairs, ignored her closed bedroom door, quelled the thoughts that tried to rise, and entered his son’s room.
Chad lay sleeping on his belly, his face turned toward the door, his breathing deep and even. Nick didn’t want to awaken him, but the need to touch his son was uncontrollable. He dropped to his knees beside the boy’s bed and gently let his hand slip into the child’s hair. Chad stirred, sighed contentedly, but did not awaken.
Nick felt the anguish then.
He was here, where he did not belong, and he had no choice. But this, all of this, all of Drag-more and all of Clarendon, would one day be Chad’s. This made his own life bearable. This made it worth it.
Yet the fantasy was incipient but tangible. He pictured Chad in dungarees and bare feet running in the Texas woods. He pictured him running with his cousins, his sister Storm’s children. He pictured him sitting on his grandfather’s knee, being regaled by tales of Apaches and Texas Rangers and grizzly bears, in the house where he had been raised. By the man who had raised him.
Raised him, loved him, lied to him.
Shit, Nick thought, caressing his son. The anguish was worse now. Well, regardless of what Derek and his mother had done (he just couldn’t think, much less say,myparentsanymore), one day Chad would have to go to Texas to visit. It was his heritage as much as Dragmore.
And just the thought of taking his son to Texas brought something hot and hard to his chest. Something choking. It had been so long since he’d been home. What would he say to Derek? Derek, to this day, did not know he knew the truth. Nick had seen him only once since he had found out, in late ′65, right after the War Between the States, while he was on his way to England and his new life.
He didn’t want to think about any of it. Not about the blood and stench, the death and dying, of the war. He didn’t want to think about the day he’d left, ridden off to fight—which was also the day he’d learned the truth about his father. It was amazing. He’d just made love to his girlfriend, the daughter of a neighboring rancher, a kind of farewell. And then she told him. Told him his mother’d been abducted by a Comanchero who’d raped her. Told him how his father—not his real father, but Derek—had hunted the Comanchero— his real father—down and killed him. Miranda had been married to Derek for only a short time before the raid; she had been mourning her first husband. Her marriage to Derek had been in name only, hastily conducted a few weeks after her husband’s death because of an oath made between the two men, who were blood brothers. Derek had sworn to take care of her. When she gave birth to Nick nine months after her abduction, there was no question that the father was the Comanchero.
Shocked, Nick asked her how she knew, but even in the midst of the trauma, he recognized the truth. Because the truth was in his appearance. He was different from them all. His father was a golden man like his own Nordic father; so were his brother and sister. His mother had sable hair and ivory skin. He, Nick, had blue-black hair and dark copper skin.
His girlfriend told him it was no secret.
So everyone in the territory knew the truth— except him.
Yet he thought of all the times he’d been alone with Derek, hunting, on the trail, riding cattle, in the fields. He thought of the warmth and camaraderie they’d shared. Derek had cared for him. That he didn’t doubt, not now, when the trauma of the truth had receded, replaced with some degree of objectivity. But love him as a son? Impossible—because he wasn’t his son, he would never be his son, he was the bastard of a raping, murdering half-breed Comanchero.
Nick looked at his son with fierce, fierce love. He did not believe in God. But if he had, he would have said thanks that his son would never go through what he had gone through. That Chad had been young enough when Patricia had run away not to even notice, and young enough to get over her death without a tear.
The earl got up and left, closing the door gently. In the hallway his eyes found her door of their own will. He stared at it. In his emotional state he didn’t give a damn if he thought improper thoughts. She was in bed, asleep. Probably naked except for a thin nightgown. He imagined her breasts, small, too small, but perfect. He imagined her hair, thick and untamed and coming to her hips. He imagined her naked, her hair streaming down over her bare body, over her breasts, tangling between her legs. He walked downstairs.
And in his bed he lay on his stomach, hard and throbbing against the mattress. His chest was tight, his breathing heavy. What if he went to her door, opened it, watched her? What if she awakened, smiled sleepily? What if he went to her, and she was naked, her body white and pink, nipples small and tight, and he touched her, touched her breasts, firm and hard, touched her waist, slid his hand between her legs and touched her … He was moving his hips restlessly against the mattress. With a cry, he ground his thick erection into the bed, rhythmically, fiercely. He was alive and desperate, his rigid organ pulsating … Nick grabbed the headboard. He gasped as his seed erupted, warm and wet on his belly, again and again.
He lay very still. He’d nearly broken the headboard. Damn. Worse. He was truly depraved. He was fantasizing about a schoolgirl. About his ward. He was depraved.
He was just like his father, the Comanchero Chavez.
9
Jane was nervous.
She told herself that she was being foolish, acting like the child he thought she was, but that did not soothe her emotions. She hovered in the hallway between the kitchen and the dining room. He was coming; she had seen him riding across the field toward the stables. It was just past two.
She had overslept and missed him that morning and had taken her breakfast alone downstairs. She had no intention of doing so again. She had skipped lunch at noon in the nursery on purpose. In the dining room two places were set. Molly had been wide-eyed when Jane had ordered her to do so, but Thomas had hidden a smile. Now Jane hugged her arms to her body and waited. She never heard his footsteps—he was as soundless as a tomcat. But she heard the doors drifting shut. And then she heard him. “What the hell!”
Before Jane could move, he opened the door to the back corridor where she stood. It was hard to say whom was more surprised when they came face to face, she or the earl. She tried not to appear cowed. She let her arms fall to her sides.
“Is Amelia here?” he asked.
Who was Amelia? “I do not know,” Jane answered breathlessly.
His gaze pinned her, then slid, quickly, below her neck. He turned abruptly away with a muttered curse and wheeled back into the dining room. She heard his chair grating against the floor as he yanked it out. Swallowing, Jane entered as gracefully as possible. She sat down at the place on his right.
His eyes went wide. He recovered; they narrowed. He said nothing. He just stared.
Jane reached for the little silver bell. Her hand, damn it, shook. She rang it. He was still staring. His presence was overwhelming. Jane felt tiny— worse, like the child he thought her to be. She was starting to regret what she had done. And still he said nothing.
Thomas entered, followed by two servants with platters of food. He seemed to be hiding another smile upon his bland face. “Wine, my lady?”
