“How pretty!” Amelia laughed. “Tres belles!” she added in French.
“Tres bien. Tu parles plus bon, cherie,” Marie praised.
“Due, I am certain, to your fine tutoring,” she replied. “Mrs. Culhane asks if the girls need anything else from the kitchen before the cook leaves.”
“No, they are fine. I was going to tell them a story, but they like yours so much better. Do you mind? I impose?”
“Not at all!” Amelia protested. “Go on, do. I’ll get them settled for you.”
Marie smiled. She was petite and dark, very kind and gentle. Her husband had died of a fever only a few months before, leaving a distraught widow to cope with two little girls. Fortunately, there was money in the family, so Marie wasn’t left destitute. Enid Culhane was a cousin of Marie. The women had become close, and Enid had invited Marie and the children to stay at the ranch.
Once Marie had gone back to the living room, Amelia curled up on the bed with the little girls and opened the French reader of fairy tales. She struggled with some words, but the girls were eager to teach her. It was a learning experience for all of them, and she did love children.
She covered the little girls up to their necks when they were sleeping and kissed their rosy cheeks. She stood looking down at them with tender eyes, wondering if she would ever have a child of her own. The thought of being forced to marry Alan and bear his children made her ill.
She turned and tiptoed to the door, opening it very quietly. But as she closed it and slipped away down the dark hall, she collided suddenly with a tall, powerful figure and gasped as lean hands gripped her shoulders.
She knew before she looked up who had steadied her. When King was within a yard of her, she could feel the hair standing on her nape. She had a peculiar kind of intuition that always recognized him, even before he spoke.
Her eyes lifted, curious and quiet, to the dark, lean contours of his face. He had silver eyes, deeply set under thick brows in a lean, square face notorious for its expressiveness. King could say more with a look than his brother could with a dictionary. His temper, like his courage, was legendary in this part of Texas.
He was wearing a dark suit, and against it his white shirt emphasized the olive of his complexion. He was a striking man. He didn’t have Alan’s good looks or the craggy ones of his father. But there was something in that face that made women want to crawl to him. Amelia had seen them simper around him for years and hated his arrogance and sensuality. She hated knowing that he could have any woman he wanted, especially since he made it so apparent that he didn’t want Amelia.
“Watch where you’re going, can’t you?” he asked curtly.
“Sorry,” she said demurely and went to move away.
Surprisingly, his hands tightened on her soft upper arms. “What were you doing in there?” he asked suspiciously, jerking his head toward Marie’s bedroom.
She lifted both eyebrows. “Pilfering jewels?” she suggested with a smile.
He scowled.
“I was reading the girls to sleep,” she said quickly. She hadn’t meant to give voice to her sense of humor.
“They speak very little English.”
He thought her a liar as well as a thief. What else could she expect? “Mais, je parle français, monsieur,” she told him. Mischievously she added, “Je ne vous aime pas. Je pense que vous êtes un animal.”
His head moved. Just a little. Just a fraction. Something changed in his silver eyes. “C’est vrai?” he replied softly.
Blushing furiously, she jumped away from him. He let her go without protest, and she took to her heels, running pell-mell down the hall to her own room. She darted in it and closed the door, locking it as an afterthought. Her face was scarlet. Why hadn’t she realized that such an educated man might have a knowledge of languages past the requisite Greek and Latin? Certainly King Culhane spoke enough French to understand that she’d said she didn’t like him and that he was an animal. She didn’t know how she was going to face him!
Of course she had to eventually. She couldn’t hide in her room during after-dinner coffee. And while she might have betrayed a little knowledge of French, at least she hadn’t disgraced herself by addressing him in the familiar tense. She adjusted her white lace blouse in the waistband of her long black skirt and tucked wisps of hair back into her high coiffure. She winced at her own pale reflection in the mirror and wished she hadn’t been quite so forthcoming.
Enid and Marie and Hartwell Howard were nibbling on the delicate Napoleon pastries that had been served with their coffee when Amelia joined them in the parlor.
Her dark-faced, mustachioed father gave her a cursory appraisal. He had a glass of whiskey in his hand, and his cheeks were red—a dangerous sign. Amelia gave thanks that she wasn’t alone with him. “Where have you been, miss?” he asked angrily. “Is this any way to behave in company?”
“I do beg your pardon,” Amelia said softly, placating him as usual, keeping her eyes lowered as she sat beside Marie and Enid, almost trembling with nerves. “I was detained.”
“Mind your manners,” her father repeated.
“Yes, Papa.”
Alan came into the room with King and their father. All three men were wearing dark suits, but King looked impeccably elegant in his, while Alan looked uncomfortable. Brant, as usual, was the picture of the country gentleman.
“Your father mentioned that you play 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