They had long memories in Cheshire, and her grandfather had told her the tale of the wild Russian woman brought back from London by his ancestor. She had been a serving girl in the retinue of one of the Russian princesses; a free woman who had boldly given up everything she knew to follow the man she loved.
Had she missed the empty wildness of her native land? Had she ached, as Natasha herself sometimes ached, for something more than her life encompassed? Had she known the same wildness of spirit deep down inside her? It was a wildness that Natasha had long ago learned to control, but it was still buried deep inside her: a yearning, an aching for … for what? For freedom? Why did she think she might find that freedom in Texas? Surely she hadn’t been foolish enough to fall for Tip’s stories? She had travelled enough to know that people were the same wherever one went—their emotions … their hopes … their fears—but still she knew that, despite all her logical analysis, she would go to Texas.
ADAM WAS astounded when she told him.
‘You can’t mean it!’ he expostulated, as they ate a late lunch in a small ‘in’ restaurant off Bond Street.
‘I have to go to find out what he’s left me,’ she pointed out calmly.
Adam frowned. ‘There is that, of course, but it won’t be much,’ he warned her. ‘I know these Texans, Natasha … It’s family first, second and third …’
Adam knew little of her life before she came to London, and so she smiled coolly at him, knowing that he had just destroyed any chance there might have been of a more intimate relationship between them. If he knew her so little that he actually thought she could be motivated by greed, then he was most definitely not the man for her.
Force of habit made her keep her thoughts to herself, her smile calm and unrevealing as she listened to him and ate her meal. She waited until they were on the point of leaving before telling him that she had not changed her mind.
‘Well, if you go, it means that you will have to leave the gallery,’ Adam told her. ‘I can’t afford to have you missing right now … and there are plenty of other women looking for jobs …’
It was a threat and they both knew it, but Natasha chose not to betray her knowledge.
‘I’m sorry, Adam. I have to go … As you say, you can’t afford to give me time off right now, so I think it best all round if I hand in my notice.’
He looked stupefied, and she was quite surprised by the sensation of exhilaration and freedom that rushed over her. She had worked at the gallery for two years without realising how much she was beginning to dislike it.
‘I suppose you’re hoping he’s left you enough to mean that you won’t have to work,’ Adam sneered. ‘Or maybe you’ve got other plans. With looks like yours, you might be able to hook yourself a real-life millionaire while you’re out there, is that it?’ he suggested crudely. ‘Well, be warned, Natasha. Oil prices aren’t what they were … and Texan women are pretty tough competition. Money marries money out there …’
She managed to hold on to her temper until after he had gone. She had no wish to quarrel with him, and there was little point in countering his snide suggestions. Let him think what he wished …
A husband, children, a home—yes, these were all things she wanted; but she had no need to sell herself to get them. When she married it would be to a man she could respect, a man whose life she could share, a man who respected her …
Respect? A mirthless smile tugged at her lips. There must be more of that good Cheshire blood in her than she had known … What had happened to love? Or, at twenty-five, was she too old to be chasing after that elusive chimera? She had seen her friends in love, and seen that love fade, only to be reborn again with someone else … Married couples changed partners in a strange and complex dance that left her wary and aloof. She still held true to the old tenets and old ways: marriage was for life … That was how she wanted hers to be. If she couldn’t have that, then better not to marry at all.
ONCE SHE’D made up her mind to go out to Texas, the whole trip began to take on the air of an adventure, fuelled as much by the fact that her aunt and uncle took a very similar view to her plans as Adam had, as by anything else.
Her aunt complained over the telephone that she no longer understood her; that she had always been such a practical, sensible girl.
Perhaps that was half the trouble—she had been too sensible, repressing the zinging love of life and adventure that was such a part of her character, out of a desire to please others rather than herself.
She grieved for Tip, of course; she had liked the old man very much but, as she went sedately about her daily life, making her plans, nothing could quite subdue the bubble of excitement frothing inside her.
Adam accused her of being childish.
‘What do you expect to find out there?’ he had demanded in a last, vain attempt to prevent her leaving. ‘Romance? Love? Do you think the whole state’s filled with lean-hipped, laconic cowboy types, just waiting to sweep you off your feet? Is that it?’
Of course she didn’t, but the picture he conjured up was an irresistible one, and only added to her determination to go. Sanely and honestly, she didn’t know why she was so intent on going; partly it was because of Tip, of course, but there was more to it than that—much, much more.
She was even buying a new wardrobe especially for the trip. The day after she made her decision she had thrown open her wardrobe doors and looked thoughtfully at the silk dresses and neat suits therein, and on a sudden impulse—remembering the jeans of her teenage years—she had gone out scouring the shops for clothes suitable to wear on a Texan cattle ranch.
She didn’t know how long she would have to stay; the letter simply stated that there were certain conditions attached to her bequest which were best explained in situ. She couldn’t begin to work out what they were but, at the end of the day, there was no way anyone could force her to accept either a bequest or conditions she did not want; and with that escape route very much to the forefront of her mind she felt quite comfortable about following the instructions contained in the lawyer’s letter.
She bought a round-trip ticket, and booked herself into a Dallas hotel room overnight. She held a current driver’s licence, her visa was rushed through and she was assured that there would be no problems in her hiring a car. If, as she suspected from Tip’s conversation, the ranch was a long, long way from the nearest town, then she would prefer to drive herself to her ultimate destination rather than rely on others.
Who would own the ranch now? Presumably Tip’s grandson; the one who had been refusing to knuckle down and marry as Tip had wanted him to do. ‘One grandson—that’s all I’ve got, and he’s so damned cussed he won’t settle down and start a family,’ he had complained to Natasha on more than one occasion, and sometimes in terms earthy enough to bright a faint tinge of colour to her pale skin. Tip was nothing if not frank about his grandson’s prowess with the female sex, and Natasha could see that he was more than proud of him, although deploring the fact that he was not prepared to confine his activities to one woman and get down to the all-important business of providing him with great-grandsons.
Oddly for an American, Tip had had no photographs to show her, but from his conversations she had gained the impression that his grandson was cast very much in the mould of the older man. She suspected that, if they met, she wouldn’t like him. What was acceptable in an old man of seventy-odd was not so easy to overlook in a much younger male!
Chauvinistic didn’t even begin to describe the Travers men, or so it seemed from Tip’s description of his own and his grandson’s attitudes to life. Arrogance seemed to sit on their shoulders as naturally as their Stetson hats fitted their heads. But, of course, she could be wrong; Tip’s grandson could turn out to be very different from the way she visualised him.
She had booked her flight for the end of the week, which left her just about enough time to sort herself out.