Maggie and the Maverick
Autorzy
Laurie Grant
Lektury
18,7K
Rozdziały
30
Prologue
“It’s been very enjoyable, Maggie mine,” Captain Richard Burke told her, smiling regretfully as he rose from the horsehair sofa in front of the hearth. “But I’m afraid marriage is out of the question. You see…I have a wife back East.”
Even as her mind tried to process the words, Margaret Harper automatically noticed how handsome he looked in his uniform, his captain’s bars gleaming against the crisp dark blue. Richard Burke was an attractive man. And even now, as she began to comprehend the full horror of what he had just said, she still couldn’t rid her mind of the thought that he looked the very picture of a soldier.
“Y-you’re married?” Her lips, which still felt the taste of his passionate kiss, grew numb, and she could hardly form the words. “But you…but we’ve been courting-we’ve been lovers! How could you make me think. How could you say you loved me—when you…belonged to another?”
Richard sighed, smiled at her again and started to cup her chin in his hand, a gesture she had always found charming. Now she shrank from his touch. He had betrayed her! How could he think she would let him put his hands on her now?
“Ah, Maggie, who wouldn’t love you? Who could resist you? You’re an unusual woman, you know. Why, I’ve never met a female like you—a reporter, no less! And I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you. I do—in a way I’ll never love Beatrice, my wife. You understand me as she never could. And you’re so honest—”
“That’s certainly a virtue you can’t claim, isn’t it, Richard?” she snapped, ignoring the pain that sliced through her like a cavalry saber. She slapped his still-extended hand away and jumped to her feet. “Don’t you dare touch me, you—you cur! Get out!”
But Richard Burke gave her another of his coaxing smiles. “Now, Maggie, let’s not be so hasty. Boston is hundreds of miles away, and what you and I found together was very…special to me. I believe it was to you, too. Surely we can just go on as we’ve been? You’d miss my loving, wouldn’t you? I know I’d miss touching you, kissing you—”
“You bastard,” she hissed. “I’d feel contaminated if your shadow ever again so much as crossed mine. I told you once to leave, and I meant it. Now get out, or I’ll call my father.”
“Margaret, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Burke retorted silkily. “Would you really like him to know why you’re upset? Do you really want your dear papa to know his innocent daughter is innocent no more? You know, I never expected you to be a…to be untouched, the way you smiled at me.”
“Damn you, Richard Burke,” she said between clenched teeth, feeling her hands curl into claws and fighting the urge to launch herself at him and rake that handsome face. “Damn you to hell!”
“Now, now, I’ve always admired your fiery temperament, m’dear—it goes with that red hair—but a lady doesn’t curse. But then, a lady doesn’t soil her hands in printer’s ink, either, does she? Can you wonder that I thought you a woman of the world?”
She wasn’t aware of her hand closing around the delicate little figurine on the end table beside the couch; she didn’t know she had picked it up until it shattered against the wall just an inch or two above Burke’s head.
He flinched as shards of porcelain rained around him, and after one last reproachful look, beat a hasty retreat out the door.
From above, Maggie heard her father call, “Is anything amiss, Margaret? I thought I heard a noise. Did something break?”
“Everything’s all right, Papa,” she called back, hoping he did not hear the shakiness of her voice. “Mr. Burke was just leaving, and I’m afraid I accidentally knocked the little china ballerina to the floor and broke it.”
“Oh, is that all? Too bad, but I thought you were hurt. Tell Mr. Burke goodbye for me—and why not invite him to Sunday dinner?”
The only place I’ll invite him to go is straight to hell, Papa. Then she realized she’d better clean up the damage before she had to explain why the remains of the figurine were lying scattered on the braided rug next to the parlor door rather than next to the end table. She knelt and, holding up her skirt to form a pocket, began dropping the broken pieces into it.
How could she have been so foolish? she wondered, as tears began to blind her eyes to the task. How could she have trusted Richard Burke so completely when he said he loved her, in spite of the still, small voice inside her that said it was too soon, that words of admiration and love came too easily to the Yankee captain’s mouth? This is what you get for ignoring that warning, whether you call it conscience or an angel’s voice, she told herself fiercely. You deserve this heartache, because your instincts told you Richard Burke was too good to be true, and you didn’t believe them.
He’d sworn they’d be married just as soon as they could arrange it, but he’d begged to be allowed to make love to her sooner. He was on fire for her, he’d claimed that night about a month ago, when he’d come calling. Her father had been working late at the newspaper office, and she’d known better than to let Richard in, but he’d coaxed her and teased her until she’d done so.
He’d begun his seduction as soon as the door had closed behind him. She’d surrendered to him that night, and he’d kissed away her tears from the pain of losing her virginity. He’d told her she was magnificent, that he loved her, and he’d renewed his promise that they’d soon be married.
She had passed the next weeks in a sensual haze, stealing out to meet him several times a week. She’d neglected her duties as one of her father’s chief reporters for the newspaper that served both the occupying troops and the horde of profiteers that had descended on conquered Texas.
Richard had tutored her in the ways of sexual pleasure-always calling it love, of course. He hadn’t mentioned marriage again, and whenever she tried to, he’d adroitly distracted her.
Tonight she’d been determined that they should settle on a date and, after a few kisses, had told him smilingly but firmly that she wanted to plan their wedding.
Then he had told her about the wife in Boston. He had never meant to marry Maggie, of course. She had just been a pleasurable distraction to him while he served with the federal occupation troops in Austin.
And now she was ruined. It was entirely possible she could be carrying his child. And even if she escaped that disastrous consequence, there was nothing to stop Richard from boasting of his conquest to the entire regiment.
Fool! her brain screamed as tears began to flood down her cheeks. Blindly, she reached for a piece of the porcelain ballerina’s arm and gasped as a needle-sharp sliver of china slid into the tender flesh of her fingertip.
The pain was the last straw. Collapsing against the wall, the pieces of porcelain still cradled in her skirt, she began to sob in earnest.
