Chapter 3 #2
And it was true as well that her stepfather had been a senator, and the story of his murder of their father, his subsequent seizure of their property, and his attempts at murder had appeared in a number of newspapers in major cities across the country.
People seemed to love stories about corruption in government.
In several instances, sketches of her and Skylar—good sketches by talented artists—had even appeared in the papers.
Sabrina felt that although she wasn’t exactly well-known, she could never be sure that she might not be recognized as Dillman’s stepdaughter.
It probably didn’t matter anyway. No matter where she went, she thought uneasily, Sloan would find her.
And the truth of the matter was that Skylar was right. They lived in a harsh, unforgiving, uncompromising world. It wasn’t fair in the least, but no matter where she ran, the truth would catch up to her. She would be an unwed mother with all the cruel stigma that was attached to such a position.
Worse. She could raise a child who would have to pay for her decisions as well.
She tossed in bed, burying her head under the pillow, fraught with fear, tension, and indecision.
At last, she came up from beneath the pillow. She needed to breathe.
Light was just beginning to come through her windows.
She leaped out of her bed in a sudden panic, realizing that morning had come.
She tore out of her room and down the second-floor hallway to the room Sloan had taken. She tapped on the door, but there was no response. She pushed the door open and looked quickly around the room.
He was already gone.
“Uh-humm.”
At the sound of a throat being cleared, she nearly jumped. It was Myer, the astoundingly correct butler who served Castle Rock in the Highlands.
“I believe, Miss Connor, that Mr. Trelawny is still down at the stables. If you hurry…”
If she hurried. She wasn’t even dressed. She was in a white eyelet nightgown and barefoot. But if she ran back to her room to dress…
“Thank you, Myer,” Sabrina said, with what dignity she could muster. “I just wanted to say goodbye.”
“Of course, Miss Connor,” Myer said.
Sabrina smiled, then turned and hurried down the hallway and ran pell-mell down the stairs.
She passed through the great hall and out to the velvet green lawn that stretched before the castle.
The stables were placed outside the main wall that ringed the stone edifice, and Sabrina found herself wishing more and more fervently that she’d at least had the sense to slip into a robe and shoes before tearing after a man she had been eager to see leave.
Perhaps he had already ridden away; perhaps she would be spared this conversation, and forced to manage on her own…
No.
He stood outside the stables, his back to her.
He was just tightening the girth on the saddle of one of the Douglas horses.
And he apparently heard her long before she actually came to the point ten feet behind him where she chose to stop, suddenly absolutely speechless.
Could she really do this? Pray God, he would make it easy.
Sloan wasn’t going to make anything easy. Not for her. Not ever.
“Well, Miss Connor?” he said after a moment, without turning from his task.
Sabrina gritted her teeth together. Her feet hurt. And he wouldn’t even turn around.
“I’ve—” she began, but broke off. The words she needed simply wouldn’t come. She was gasping on pride, she realized. She might just choke from it.
“You’ve what?” he demanded, turning around at last.
Caught in shadow against the rising sun, he might have been any man.
A White man.
His tailored shirt was fashionably handsome, as were his maroon frock coat, black riding breeches, and boots. He wore a slouch hat pulled in a low angle over his forehead. She couldn’t see his eyes for the shadow, and had no idea of what he was thinking or feeling.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“About what?”
“Damn you, Sloan—”
“About what?”
She clenched her hands into fists behind her back, trying to stand very tall and straight. “About your proposal.”
“What proposal would that be?”
“Sloan, don’t be so vicious—”
“Savage, isn’t that what you mean?”
“Rude. Cruel. That’s what I mean,” she said heatedly.
He arched a brow, leaned against the horse, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I do apologize then. Let’s begin anew. So you have been thinking about my proposal. And just what is it that you have thought?”
“Well, I suppose, I mean, it could be done…just for the sake of the child, of course.”
“Just for the sake of the child—what does that mean?”
“Sloan, surely I don’t need to be explicit—”
“Surely, you do. What exactly do you mean?”
“We can’t possibly live together as man and wife.”
“Why not?”
“Because—because—” she stuttered. He wasn’t helping her at all.
He just kept staring, demanding an answer.
She threw up her hands. “We don’t get along.
We’ve both got wretched tempers; we can’t agree on anything.
So far, I don’t like the West, and I’m—I’m afraid of people who mean a tremendous amount to you.
” His eyes narrowed at that, but he didn’t comment.
She inhaled again. “I would be a horrible wife to you—”
“I’d be the one taking that chance, wouldn’t I?” he asked curtly. “And I’m willing to take it.”
“For the sake of the child.”
He shrugged.
“But, Sloan—”
“So what are you suggesting?”
“Well, we could marry but remain apart. A lot of people do it.” She paused because he was laughing. “Sloan, damn you, people marry and can’t live with one another, and so they live apart.”
He shook his head. “Not me.”
“Well, I can’t see how it would disturb your lifestyle!” she snapped angrily. “To the best of my understanding, you have an Indian mistress on the plain, and a number of lady…friends in different settlements along the frontier. You could continue to live your life as you chose—”
“And what about you?” he queried pleasantly.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you intend to condemn yourself to a loveless life of chastity?”
“Well, I hadn’t really thought—”
“Well, then, think about this,” he interrupted softly. “I’d kill any man who touched my wife.”
The shivering sensation he could evoke all too easily swept through her.
“Sloan—”
“No.”
“No—what?”
“No marriage in name only.”
He turned back to his horse, dismissing her, as if he had no further interest in her at all. She strode to him angrily. “Sloan, this isn’t fair—”
He swung around. “Life isn’t fair. I’d thought you’d learned that lesson.”
He was just inches away. He smelled pleasantly of sandalwood soap, leather, coffee, and tobacco. He was very tall, wickedly muscled, and lean.
“Sloan—”
“What do you want, Sabrina?”
“You—you—asked—”
“I asked. You declined. It’s your turn.”
“What are you saying?”
“If you want me to marry you, Sabrina, it’s your turn to ask.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
She swung around furiously, ready to walk away.
She stepped hard on a rock and cried out, hopping as she grabbed for her injured foot, nearly falling and hating herself all the more as he caught her when she would have fallen.
She regained her balance, trying to wrench free from him.
“I’m not asking you to marry me, Sloan Trelawny—”
“Good. I won’t have to refuse you.”
“Refuse me! You started this—”
“All right. I started it. Ask.”
“Damn you, Sloan. I said I’d marry you!” she cried out, suddenly very afraid. She thought that she had wanted him to go away. But that wasn’t true. She had wanted him to force the issue, but he was determined that she was going to have to enter into whatever bargain they made with her eyes opened.
“All right, I won’t make you get down on your hands and knees.”
“You bastard—”
“That’s right, Sabrina. So let’s keep the babe from being one, shall we?”
She hugged her arms around her chest. “So—we’re both agreed. We will marry.”
He nodded, a curious smile on his face. “But you accept my terms.”
“Your terms—”
“When you marry me, Sabrina, you do so for better or worse. You don’t run away from life, and you don’t run away from me. You live with me, Sabrina, as my wife.”
She stood very still, feeling the breeze lift her hair, feeling chills and then a wave of heat sweep through her.
“You accept what I am,” he added softly.
“I…”
He turned back to his horse, adjusting the saddle once again. She felt a moment of pure panic. None of this really mattered to him. He’d been playing with her, and now he was just going to leave her.
“I—yes!” she hissed.
Then he was dead still for a minute, his back to her.
And she realized that he wasn’t leaving now—at least not yet.
He lifted the saddle off his horse, setting it on a cross beam of the paddock fence.
He turned back to her, his eyes raking up and down the length of her as he seemed to come to some conclusion she couldn’t figure out.
“Well, then, we need to plan a legal marriage, quickly. Bear this in mind: you have until the ceremony to be certain of your own decision in this. We’ll be married as soon as we can arrange it.
But I mean what I said. For better or worse.
Marriage is until death do us part—and that isn’t an invitation for you to hope that I might get myself killed soon. ”
She lowered her head quickly. “I don’t hope that you’ll get killed quickly.”
“The hell you don’t,” he mused dryly.
“Well, then,” she replied pleasantly, “I hope someone kills you slowly!”
He laughed. Then she gasped because his arm was suddenly around her waist, and she could feel the warmth and strength of his hand on her hip through the cotton of her gown. “You’re freezing,” he told her with a frown. “Let’s get back inside the castle before you catch your death.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m never ill, and I’m far stronger than you could ever imagine, Sloan Trelawny.”
“That’s to be seen, isn’t it?” he inquired pleasantly enough.
He led her back toward the gray edifice, walking swiftly until he realized that she couldn’t keep up because she was limping.
“No clothes, no shoes,” he said irritably, sweeping her up in his arms.
“I can walk.”
“Your foot is bleeding.”
“But I can walk—”
He swore impatiently. “We’d best get this wedding arranged before you do any more bloody harm to yourself,” he muttered.
They reached the castle and entered the great hall. Sloan started to set her down, then paused.
Hawk and Skylar and David and Shawna and their little boy all stood in the great hall.
All dressed.
All watching.
And waiting.
Sloan very slowly allowed Sabrina to slide to the floor in front of him, holding her steady there, which she greatly appreciated because her stomach was suddenly churning.
“Well, how convenient,” he murmured dryly. “Since you’re all here…Sabrina and I would like to invite you to our wedding. If you’d be kind enough to arrange it, of course, Laird Douglas,” he added to David.
David bowed slightly, hiding his smile. “Of course. With the greatest pleasure.”
Sabrina pressed against Sloan, feeling flushed and ill. “Sloan! I’m…going to be sick.”
He released her. She fled for the stairs. Sloan shrugged to the others.
“She really loves me,” he murmured dryly. “Will you excuse me?”
He followed her up the stairs then, bursting into her room behind her when she was seeking to be alone—to be sick! His arm was suddenly around her, and she was crying out, “I’m not sick because of you. I’m not afraid of you. It isn’t the thought of you; it’s—”
“The baby, I know,” he said impatiently. “And I’m trying to help you. Stop, stand still, and breathe in deeply.”
“What?”
“Do as I say.”
“For God’s sake, Sloan!” she cried with aggravation. “I’m trying not to be sick on you!”
“Breathe!” he insisted.
He held her shoulders, and to her amazement, when she breathed as he’d instructed her to do, her nausea ebbed away.
She stared at him, amazed, then heard a tapping at her door. Skylar slipped her head in, then entered.
“David says he’s sure he can arrange a license and get the reverend here by this afternoon. He thought you might like to be married quickly and quietly in the chapel here at the castle.”
“That will be fine,” Sloan said, his dark eyes on Sabrina.
The room spun.
She wasn’t sick.
Silver mist appeared before her again. She was weightless, falling.
And to her deep distress, he was there again, to catch her as she fell into the blackness of oblivion.