“And you are a damned savage!” she hissed.
He laughed softly, suddenly pulling her to him. “You were wonderfully savage yourself tonight, my love!”
She tried to kick him, but he moved swiftly enough to avoid her toes.
“Bastard!” she cried, jerking free from him and striding to the door, which she slammed behind her with such force she was sure its reverberation could be heard throughout the house.
Then she spun and ran toward her own room with all possible speed.
CHAPTER 13
Everything was going to be all right. Despite the fact that she was far from thrilled by the prospect of riding into completely uncivilized country with Hawk, she should have had the easiest rest she had known since arriving in the Dakota territory. Hawk was going to send for Sabrina first thing in the morning. Jimmy Pike at Pike’s Inn would receive the wire and slip word to Sabrina. And she would be free as well.
Maybe it was her relief that brought that last incident rushing back into her dreams.
Dillman. Unchanged. After so many years.
Handsomely dressed in his dark suit, tall and trim. He spent hours each week at his club, boxing, shooting, fencing, perfecting his physique and his image. The ultimate politician.
With the local police in his pocket.
He’d had over a decade then in which to achieve the image. As a young child, Skylar had known only that he’d killed her father. As she’d grown up in what he had made into his own household, she had come to realize many things about the man and his motives. He had seen what her father had possessed, not just in material goods, but in his home and family, and most importantly, his position in the very exclusive strata ofBaltimore society. By killing her father, he had won her mother, and when Jill, the granddaughter of a Revolutionary War hero, had accepted and wed him, he was well on his way to achieving all that he desired—power, social prestige, and wealth.
There were times when Skylar could almost be glad that she had grown up in the darkened shadow of war herself. She and Sabrina moved in the proper circles and attended all the right parties. The tension of living in their house was sometimes alleviated by social functions. And though Skylar had actually met several men she had liked and enjoyed, she had been grateful that the pressure to marry young had been taken away simply because so many young men had been killed. Dillman wasn’t ready for the girls to marry because his family made such an attractive political platform. Skylar and Sabrina were not ready to leave either their mother or each other.
Jill’s death, however, had changed everything.
Skylar had been convinced that despite their loss, she and Sabrina could at last find freedom.
She and Brad Dillman had fought on the upper landing of the stairway. It was rightfully their home, but after their mother had died and been buried, Skylar had wanted only to get away. She had stayed all those years because of her mother, even if Jill had failed to see the evil in Brad Dillman. There were times when Skylar had hated her mother for refusing to see the truth, but then she had realized that Jill had been completely shattered when Skylar’s father had been murdered. She had wanted so desperately to believe in Dillman. And Dillman had been good at his chosen role. He had made such a point of being so tender and gentle, taking care of everything for Jill in her sorrow—even dealing with a hurt young child who ignored his goodness and made terrible accusations against him. He had always pretended to be the perfect gentleman to his wife. Jill had always believed that Skylar’s love for her own deceased father had allowed her tocreate terrible fantasies in her mind about Dillman because she simply could not accept him as a stepfather.
It had not just been her love for her mother that had kept her home, refusing the marriage proposals that had come her way. It had been the veiled threats that Dillman had cast out over the years. Reminders that sad things could suddenly happen to people who appeared to be in the very best of health.
But then Jill had died.
And on the stairway that day, Skylar was finished with any attempt of pretense regarding Dillman.
“Now there’s no way for you to stop me from leaving. You can’t threaten me with Mother anymore because she’s dead, she’s free?—”
“And she never did believe you, did she?” Brad had taunted. “She’d never have doubted me in a thousand years, Skylar, no matter what you might have tried to tell her! Because she needed me, and she wanted me. And she didn’t want to believe those awful lies you tried to tell her, did she? Remember what happened, Skylar, when you tried to convince her that I killed your wonderful father?”
Skylar knew. Everyone had been horrified that she could have accused a man such as Brad Dillman of murder. People had thought that she was distraught. Bereft, insane with grief. Because everyone believed that Brad had tried everything to save her father, everything. He had been there, such a firm, strong support for the family, there for her mother, there for them all…
Her mother had been so upset she’d left the problem of Skylar up to Dillman. As sad as it was, Skylar had to be punished for saying such terrible things. God, had Dillman laughed when they had been alone together. And enjoyed the responsibility of taking a switch to her.
It didn’t help to remember the past.
“Dillman, you’re the fool. My mother knew about your other women.”
“She knew I slept beside her every night, and she was grateful.”
“You’re despicable. And what you have to say to me doesn’t matter in the least anymore. I’m leaving. And I’ll get lawyers to settle the estate?—”
“The estate? Skylar, you’ve always been a little girl, trying to play against men. Do you think that I’ve spent all these years here and failed to see to the estate? Let’s see, your mother inherited a fine income from your father. Lord knows, I needed that money! So when your poor father died, I married your mother. I managed the money and the legal affairs. You try to leave, and you’ll get nothing.”
“Maybe. I’ll take my chances and fight you. Surely Mother left provisions in her will for Sabrina and me.”
“And maybe she didn’t think that she needed to leave provisions for you when she was leaving you in my custody.”
