AT HER DOOR, TRAVIS GAVE A BONE-POPPING YAWN, KISSED her hand as though it were an afterthought, walked through her bedroom and out the door leading into the interior of the inn, and started up the back stairs to, she assumed, his own room. Stunned, surprised, bewildered, Regan stood by her bed and stared at the closed door.
After all he’d put her through, after all the proposals of marriage, he takes her out to a moonlight picnic, never once mentions marriage but instead talks mostly about elephant manure, and afterward leaves her in her bedroom without so much as a goodnight kiss. All evening he hadn’t touched her, hadn’t even seemed to be aware that she was near him and so very hungry for him. Of course, she’d concealed her feelings quite well, she knew that, but surely he must have been feeling some passion or at least a longing himself. Maybe making love once in four years was enough for him. After all, Travis was getting on in years; he was about thirty-eight years old now. Perhaps at that age a man….
Her thoughts trailed off as she began to undress. When she’d put the dress on she’d unconsciously imagined Travis taking it off her. Maybe he didn’t want a wanton for a wife, she thought. Yes! That must be it. He’d always thought they were married, and now that they weren’t…. No, they weren’t married all that time they were on board ship.
Sitting down on the bed, she pulled off her slippers and stockings. It could just be that Travis was tired, just as he’d said, and didn’t have the energy for rolling around with her tonight.
She slipped into a plain white cotton nightgown, checked on her sleeping daughter, and climbed into her big, cold, empty bed. An hour later she was still wide awake and knew she’d never sleep tonight, not as long as she was in one bed and Travis in another.
“Damn his tiredness!” she said aloud, throwing back the light cover.
In her wardrobe was something she’d never worn, a gift from Brandy. It was a white silk negligee, soft, almost transparent, and so low-cut it left little to the imagination. There were only inches of bodice above a white satin ribbon, and those two inches were very tight, pushing Regan’s breasts high above the fabric.
“He may be tired, but I doubt if he’s dead,” she smiled as she looked into a mirror. Flinging a cloak about herself, she went up the stairs toward Travis’s room.
Travis was standing in the center of his room, smiling to himself, a glass of port in his hand, when Margo slammed into his room. His smile vanished immediately. “Get out,” he said flatly. “I’m expecting Regan any minute.”
“That trollop!” Margo hissed. “Travis, you make me sick! Do you know how you’ve looked the last few days? Everyone, this entire town, is laughing at you. They’ve never seen any man make such a complete ass of himself.”
“You’ve had your say. Now get out,” he said coldly.
“I haven’t said half of what should be said. I’ve been asking a lot of questions in the last few days, and from what I gather you don’t even know who this woman is. Why should she marry you, a big, dumb, crude American? You’re so proud of that plantation of yours, but did you know your little Regan could buy it and not even miss the money?” She waited, watching to see how Travis was taking this news. He didn’t pause or blink an eye, just looked at her with faint distaste.
“She’s worth millions,” Margo breathed. “And next week it comes to her. She can have any man she wants, so why would she want an American farmer?”
Still Travis didn’t speak.
“Maybe you did know,” Margo said. “Maybe you’ve known all along and that’s why you’re willing to make such a complete fool of yourself to get her. A man’ll do a lot to possess that kind of money.”
She didn’t say another word as Travis’s hand grabbed her hair, pulling her head backward. “Get out,” he said, his voice low. “And may you hope I never see you again.” With that he gave her a push that sent her slamming against the door.
She recovered almost instantly. “Travis,” she said, throwing herself at him, her arms around his chest. “Don’t you know how much I love you? I have always loved you, ever since we were children. You’ve always been mine. Every day I’ve died a little more since you brought her home and said she was your wife, and now this—all this idiocy over her, and I don’t understand why. She’s never loved you. She left you, but I’ve always been near, always close when you need me. I can’t compete with her money, but I can give you love if you’ll just let me. Open your eyes, Travis, and look at me. See how much I love you.”
Peeling her arms away from him, Travis held her at arm’s length. “You have never loved me. All you ever wanted was my plantation. I’ve known for years that you’re in debt. I helped you often, but I’ll not help you to the extent of marrying you.” His voice was quiet, even gentle, and it was obvious he didn’t like seeing her disintegrate like this.
When Regan quietly opened Travis’s door, expecting him to be asleep and to slip into bed with him, she saw him holding Margo, his eyes looking down at her with gentleness, tenderness. Regan pivoted on one heel and began to run.
Travis discarded Margo onto the floor and took off after Regan.
Regan, knowing she’d never outdistance Travis to her own room, tried the door three down from Travis’s, Farrell’s room. Travis grabbed her cape just as she disappeared into the room, leaving him holding it as he heard the lock click in the door.
“Regan?” Farrell said, his eyes wide as he lit a candle, quickly pulled on his pants, and left the bed all in one motion. “You look terrified.”
Eyes wide, Regan leaned against the door, her breasts heaving above the low gown. “Margo and Travis,” she choked.
The next moment she sprang away from the door as something heavy hit it. At the next blow Travis’s booted foot came through the wood, followed by his hand as he unlocked the door. Flinging it wide, he crossed the room in two long strides and grabbed Regan’s arm.
“I’ve had enough games,” he said. “This time you’re going to obey me whether you want to or not.”
“Now see here!” Farrell said, reaching for Travis’s arm.
Travis looked him up and down, dismissed him, and turned to Regan. “You have twenty-four hours to pack, and then we’re leaving. We’ll be remarried at my house.”
With a quick twist, Regan moved away from him. “And will Margo be at our wedding, or maybe you’d rather she spent our wedding night with you?”
“You can have all the jealous fits you want when we get home, but right now I am sick of walking ropes and trying to find all those goddamn roses you seem to need, and I am not going to put up with this anymore. If I have to I’ll chain you to my bed, but you might as well know that you and my daughter are going to live with me.”
He softened a bit. “Regan, I’ve done everything I know to prove to you that you love me. Haven’t you realized it yet?”
“Me?” she gasped. “That I love you? I’ve never had any doubts. You’re the one who’s been unsure of himself. You’ve never loved me. You had to marry me the first time. You had to—.” She stopped as she looked at Travis in amazement.
He staggered backward, his hands falling to his sides limply. Blindly, his face drained of color, he began to grope for some support. He seemed to age ten years in a few seconds as he fell heavily into a chair.
“Had to marry you?” he choked, his voice weak, hoarse. “Unsure of myself? Never loved you?”
For a moment he dropped his head in his hands, and when he looked back at her his eyes were red. “I’ve loved you since I first met you,” he said quietly. “Why else would I have cared what happened to you? You were so young and frightened, and I was so scared of losing you.”
His voice grew stronger. “Why the hell else would I have risked my life on board ship to save that puppy Wainwright you liked so much? Do you know how much I wanted to throw him overboard? But I didn’t because you wanted him. And you say I never loved you.”
He stood, his voice beginning to get angry. “And I’ll have you know you aren’t the first to have my baby. I did not have to marry you.”
“But you said you always marry the mother of your children. I thought—,” she said tearfully.
He tossed his hands in the air. “You were scared and angry, didn’t even know you were going to have a baby. What was I supposed to say, that I have an illegitimate child at home, that his mother tried to sue me because I wouldn’t marry her?”
“You…you could have said you loved me.”
He quietened. “I swore before witnesses to love you for the rest of my life. What more could I have done?”
She looked down at her hands. “You’ve never asked me to marry you, not personally.”
“Never asked you to marry me?” Travis bellowed. “Goddamn you, Regan, what more do you want from me? I’ve made a fool of myself in front of an entire state, and you say—.”
He broke off as he fell to his knees before her, his hands clasped. “Regan, will you marry me? Please. I love you more than I love my own life. Please marry me.”
She put her hand on his shoulder, their faces level. “What about Margo?” she whispered.
Travis gritted his teeth, but answered, “I could have married her years ago but never wanted to.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Why didn’t you know without having to be told?” he shot back. “I love you,” he whispered. “Marry me?”
“Yes!” she cried, and threw her arms around his neck. “I’ll marry you forever.”
Neither of them was aware of anyone or anything else on the earth, and they were shocked when the applause started.
Regan buried her face in Travis’s neck. “Are there a lot of people out there?” she asked fearfully.
“ ’Fraid so,” he said. “I guess they heard the noise when you locked the door against me.”
She didn’t even bother to correct him, that the noise came from his foot smashing the door and not from her locking of it. “Will you take me away from here?” she whispered. “I don’t think I can face them.”
Triumphantly, Travis stood with Regan in his arms and started for the door. The townspeople and even the guests at the inn, several of whom had prolonged their stay from the first rose Travis sent, felt involved in this courtship and came running at the first sound of splintering wood.
The women, in heavy robes, curling rags in their hair, sighed heavily as Travis carried Regan away. “I knew it’d end happily,” one woman said. “How could she have turned him down?”
“My wife’s never gonna believe this story,” a man said. “Maybe she’ll forgive me for coming back three days late.”
“You’re a fool if you tell your wife this,” snorted another man. “We ought to make a pact to keep it secret, or every woman in the country will expect the same kind of courting, and I for one am not walking any tightrope for any damn woman in the world. I’m telling my wife I spent these three days with another woman; it’ll cause me less grief.” With that he turned toward the male dormitory.
Eventually the people decided to go back to bed, jumping once as Farrell slammed what was left of his door in their faces.
For several minutes Farrell’s cursing of America, Americans, and women in general did not stop. The two of them had ignored him, giving each other lovesick lies as if he weren’t even in the same room. As he began to think of all the money he’d spent searching for Regan, courting her, he grew more and more amgry. Yet she fell for an animal that kicked down doors, a bumbling idiot who was considered a fool by everyone who met him. The woman was insane!
And she belonged to him, to Farrell Batsford. He’d been through hell to get her money, and he wasn’t going to give it up now.
Quickly, he tossed a dressing gown on and went to find Margo. He knew she wasn’t a woman to take this public humiliation easily; perhaps they could work out something.
“Mmm, Travis,” Regan murmured, running her leg up Travis’s. The early-morning sun made her skin golden.
“Don’t start on me again,” he said. “You nearly wore me out last night.”
“You certainly don’t feel as if all of you is exhausted,” she laughed, kissing his neck, wiggling against him.
“Unless you want to put on a show for your daughter, you’d better behave. Good morning, sweetheart,” he called.
Regan turned away just in time to see her daughter, who took a flying leap at them and landed on Travis’s stomach.
“You’re home, Daddy!” she yelled. “Can I ride my pony today? Can we go to the circus again? Will you teach me to walk on a rope?”
“Instead of a circus, how about going home with me? I don’t own an elephant, but I have lots of other animals and a little brother.”
“Does Wesley know you talk about him like this?” Regan asked, but Travis ignored her.
“When can we go?” Jennifer asked her mother.
“Two days?” she asked, looking at Travis. “I have a lot to do before then.”
“Now, sweet,” Travis said. “Go to the kitchen and get some breakfast. We’ll be along in a while. I want to talk to your mother.”
“Talk?” Regan said when they were alone, rubbing against him. “I certainly like our ‘conversations.’ ”
He held her at arm’s length, and his eyes were serious. “I meant it when I said I wanted to talk. I want to know who you are and what you were doing in your nightgown on that Liverpool dock the night I found you.”
“I’d really rather go into it some other time,” she said, as lightly as she could manage. “I have an awful lot of work to do.”
He pulled her close to him. “Listen to me. I know that what you’ve been through is painful. I’ve not pressed you since we left England, but I’m here now, and you’re safe. I won’t let anything harm you, and I want to know everything about you.”
It was some minutes before she could speak. Against her will, she began to remember that night when she’d met Travis and her life before that. For years she’d been free, had come to know other people, to see how they lived, and she could see how much of a prison her childhood had been.
“I grew up totally without freedom,” she began, at first without emotion, but as she thought of the way she’d been treated in her early life, she began to grow angry.
Travis never rushed her, only held her close to him, his arms and body keeping her safe, as she poured out her whole story. It was a long time before she got to that night when she’d overheard Farrell and her uncle conspiring together. He never said a word, but his arms tightened.
She continued her story, telling Travis how she felt about him, how he frightened her, but how she clung to him, wavering between her need to prove her own worth and wanting to hide behind his strength. She poured out all the terror she’d felt at his plantation, laughing somewhat at that scared little girl, afraid to give orders to her own servants.
She finished with the story of her leaving him, of the trail she’d left behind, of her tears when he didn’t come after her.
“I could have helped you at home,” he said when she’d stopped talking. “But I knew you would have resented me. The day Margo came, the day you burned your hand, I could have killed Malvina.”
Twisting around, she looked at him. “I had no idea you knew about that.”
“I know most of what happens on my own plantation,” he said. “I just honestly didn’t know how to help you. I knew you had to learn how to help yourself.”
“Are you always right, my dear lovely husband?” she asked, caressing his face.
“Always. And I hope you remember it and obey me in all things from now on.”
She gave him her sweetest smile. “I plan to fight you every inch of the way. Every time you give me an order I’ll—.”
She broke off when he kissed her soundly, just before he pushed her from the bed.
“Get up, get dressed, and go see that Brandy has enough food for my breakfast.” A pillow landed on his face.
“Here I tell you I am massively wealthy and you don’t even comment. Some men would like to get their hands on my money.”
Eyeing her naked form, he smiled slowly. “I’m looking at what I like my hands on. As for your money, you can pay for that circus you wanted, and what’s left you can give to our children.”
“The circus I wanted,” she sputtered. “All that was your idea.”
“You wanted the courting.”
“Courting! That was the most heavy-handed, awkward, gaudy, inept courting I’ve ever seen! Any Englishman could do better.”
Lazily, Travis leaned back on a pillow. “I’m the one who had you coming to his room wearing a bit of transparent nothing, just begging me to make love to you, so maybe my courting wasn’t so bad after all.”
Regan sputtered for a few more minutes before beginning to laugh as she dressed. “You are insufferable. Shall I serve your breakfast in bed, or would you prefer a private dining room?”
“Now there’s a good wench. Try and keep that attitude. I think I’ll eat in the kitchen; just be sure there’s lots of it.”
Regan left, still laughing, and Travis wondered how he was going to have to pay for his last remarks. But whatever she did, life with her was going to be a joy. She was certainly worth all the pain he’d been through in the last few years.
Slowly, contentedly, he began to dress.
Most of the townspeople stopped by that day to congratulate Regan on her forthcoming marriage and to say goodbye to her, as they knew she’d be leaving very soon. Contrary to what Margo seemed to think, no one thought Travis was a fool. The women thought he was wonderfully romantic, and the men liked the way he went after what he wanted.
At midmorning, Regan was up to her ears in work. A maid was complaining about some odd-colored ink on a set of sheets, and everyone else seemed to be complaining also. Of maybe it was Regan’s imagination caused by her sadness at leaving the big inn she and Brandy had built.
“You’re sad, aren’t you?” Travis asked, coming up behind her.
She still wasn’t used to the keen perception of this man. She’d had no idea he was so aware of her needs and problems when she’d known him before, and now his sensitivity was startling.
“You’ll feel better once you’re at my house. What you need is a new challenge.”
“And what happens when I learn all there is to know about running a plantation?” she asked, turning toward him.
“Couldn’t happen, because I come with the plantation and you’ll never learn enough about me. Now, where’s my daughter?”
“She’s usually with Brandy at this time of day. I didn’t check because I thought you were with her.” After a moment’s thought, she smiled. “Where is the pony you bought her? Wherever it is, that’s where she is.”
“I looked in the carriage house, but she isn’t there, and Brandy hasn’t seen her all morning.”
“Not even for breakfast?” she asked, frowning. “Travis!” she said in alarm.
“Wait a minute,” he soothed. “Don’t get upset. She could have gone to a friend’s house.”
“But she always tells me where she’s going—always! It’s the only way I can keep up with her while I’m working.”
“All right,” Travis said quietly. “You look through the inn, and I’ll walk around town. We’ll find her in minutes. Now go!” he said laughingly.
Regan’s immediate thought was that perhaps Jennifer had a stomachache from yesterday’s excitement and she had gone back to her bed, forgetting to tell anyone where she was going. Quietly, Regan walked through her bedroom and slowly opened her daughter’s door. Expecting to see her daughter asleep in her bed, she did not at first understand the turmoil of the room. Clothes were strewn everywhere, drawers open, the bedclothes half on and half off, shoes scattered on the bed and floor.
“She’s been packing!” Regan said aloud, relieved at the sight.
It was as she knelt to pick up a shoe that she saw the note on the pillow. Jennifer would not be returned unless the sum of fifty thousand dollars was placed at the foot of the old well south of town two days from now.
Regan’s scream of anguish could be heard throughout the inn.
Brandy, her hands and apron covered with flour, was the first to reach Jennifer’s room. With an arm around Regan’s heaving shoulders, she led her to sit on the bed, taking the note from her.
Brandy looked up at the people standing in the doorway. “Someone find Travis,” she commanded. “And tell him to get here immediately.”
As Regan stood, Brandy caught her arm. “Where are you going?”
“I have to see how much money I have in the safe,” she said, dazed. “I know it’s not enough. Do you think I can sell something in two days?”
“Regan, sit down and wait for Travis. He’ll know how to get the money. Maybe he even has some with him.”
Regan didn’t seem to be aware of what she was doing as she sat back down, clutching the ransom note and one of Jennifer’s shoes.
Travis burst into the room moments later, and at the sight of him she jumped up and ran to him.
“Someone has taken my daughter!” she cried. “Do you have some money? Can you get fifty thousand dollars? Surely you can get that much.”
“Here, let me see the note,” he said, one arm firmly around her. He read it and reread it several times before looking up at the room.
“Travis,” Regan said. “What do we have to do to get the money?”
“I don’t like this,” he said under his breath and turned to Brandy. “Have you been in the kitchen all morning?”
Brandy nodded.
“And you heard nothing? Did you see any strangers in the hall?” he asked, nodding toward the corridor that led to the kitchen and Regan’s office.
“No one. Nothing unusual.”
“Go find everyone on the staff and bring them here instantly,” he commanded Brandy.
“Travis, please, we need to start getting the money.”
Travis sat down on the bed and drew Regan between his knees. “Listen to me. There’s something wrong here. There are only two ways to enter your apartment, past Brandy in the kitchen or through the back door. Brandy and her cooks are always in that hall going from the kitchen to the pantry, and no one could have walked out with Jennifer without being seen. So that leaves the back door, which I know you always keep locked. It hasn’t been broken, so Jennifer must have opened it from the inside.”
“But she wouldn’t! She knows not to do that.”
“That’s my point. She’d only open it to someone she knew and trusted, someone she knew was a friend. And now my second point, who knows you can get fifty thousand dollars? No one in town knows me, and until yesterday I didn’t know you had any money. Fifty thousand means someone knows a great deal more than the average Scarlet Springs resident.”
“Farrell!” Regan gasped. “He knows better than I do how much money I have.”
At that moment Brandy returned with the staff members, all of them quiet, wide-eyed—and behind them was Farrell Batsford.
“Regan,” he said. “I just heard the awful news. Is there anything I can do?”
Travis brushed past him as he began to question the staff, asking if they’d seen anything at all unusual this morning, if they had seen Jennifer with anyone.
While they were thinking, remembering nothing, Travis grabbed a maid’s hand.
“What is this on your fingers? Where did it come from?”
Stepping back, the girl looked frightened. “It’s ink. It came off the sheets in number twelve.”
Expectantly, he turned to Regan.
“Margo’s room,” she said heavily.
Without another word, he left the apartment through the back door and headed for the stables, Regan running after him. He was tossing a saddle onto a horse when she caught him.
“Where are you going?” she demanded. “Travis! We have to get the money!”
He paused long enough to touch her cheek. “Margo has Jennifer,” he said as he continued saddling the horse. “She knew we’d find the ink, and she knows I’ll come after her. That’s what she really wants. I don’t believe she’ll harm Jennifer.”
“Don’t believe! Your whore has taken my daughter and—.”
He put his finger to her lips. “She is my daughter too, and if I have to give every acre I own to Margo, I’ll get Jennifer back safely. Now I want you to stay here because I can handle this better alone.” He swung onto the horse.
“I’m just supposed to stay here and wait? And how do you know for sure where Margo is?”
“She always goes home,” he said grimly. “She always goes to where she can be near the memory of that damned father of hers.”
With that he reined away, applied a kick to the horse’s side, and disappeared in a cloud of dust.
