Villain's Woman Page 4

  She walked through the aisle in little automaton steps as Uncle Will brought her to the altar. She looked at the small gathering of people around, but she did not really see them. For some strange reasons, her attention was caught by little meaningless things … the sunlight playing on the wood beams of the church, the sound of the birds singing outside, the little drops of perspiration on the parson's balding forehead. When he asked her the question, she said, "I don't" in a flat matter-of-fact voice. But Uncle Will stepped in, towering over her and glowering, and said she meant yes, and then they went through with it anyway. So in less than an hour, Lucy Gardner became Mrs. Robert Nash. There was a shining gold wedding ring on her finger now, and Mr. Robert Nash kissed her. The kiss was chaste and quick, just a momentary touch on the lips which smelled slightly of brandy.

  "Now you are a proper married lady, my dear," Aunt Cathy said, hugging her. "I sincerely hope that now, after all those turbulent waters, you will finally reach the sweet."

  "There are no turbulent waters in Albuquerque," Lucy said. She was thinking of Byron's corsairs, flying their ships over the waves, and of Gerald Steel asking her to recite the poem for him, smiling.

  As the wagon was taking them out of Way's End to Mr. Nash's lands, Lucy did not look at the little town where she had spent all her life. She did not even turn to look at the shop where Gerald had given her the perfume, nor the bench where they had talked together, nor at the two-story saloon building and the alley where he had saved her and held her and kissed her. She was looking at the sky with vacant eyes. It was very blue, with little ragged wisps of white clouds sailing on high, and the deep blue was tinged with vibrant violet and purple, a sign of a threatening coming storm.

  The journey took the most part of the day, and the sun was setting when they finally arrived. At another time, Lucy would have marveled at the beauty of the sunset, that purple sky set on fire and turning blood-red, but she was in no mood to admire landscapes. She was in no mood to admire Mr. Robert Nash's lands either, though Aunt Cathy praised the three-story mansion, which was twice as large as their house in Way's End.

  Lucy was silent. But that did not seem to dampen Mr. Nash's spirits, and he was all pleasant smiles and attentive host. They had all been rather worried that the storm would catch them on the way … all but Lucy, who had hoped for it. But the storm never came, the evening was glorious, and after a little rest they would celebrate the wedding.

  Mr. Robert Nash had even hired musicians from Albuquerque for the wedding, and the large hall was decorated with lots of white evening primroses. There was a lot of food, too, and Uncle Will especially praised the chicken salad, but Lucy did not have the heart to taste anything. She was acutely aware of the cold metal of the knife pressing into her skin under the sleeve's fabric. The room was stuffy, or else her corset was too tight, and she seemed not to get enough air. The pale evening primroses sent off a heady, sweet smell into the night, and it was almost suffocating her. Her head was spinning, and there seemed to be a throbbing noise, a pounding even, like horses galloping.

  "What's that sound?" Uncle Will frowned, looking up from the chicken salad. But the musicians were playing loudly, and the windows were closed against the night. Uncle Will shrugged and returned to his food. However, when the door flew open with a bang, the music stopped.

  Time seemed to stop, too, as Lucy saw Gerald Steel walk into the bright candlelit hall. His boots were dusty from riding, and he had not taken his high black hat off. He was holding a Colt. He had twenty men with him. They were armed, too.

  She did not make a sound. It seemed that she could not utter a word, her voice frozen inside her throat, her heart beating furiously as if it wanted to break her ribcage and fly free. The room fell silent. One of Steel's men reached for the wine on the table and drank some straight from the bottle. Mr. Nash's big serving man moved to apprehend him, and there was a sound of shattering glass as Steel's man handed him a blow on the face with the bottle. The serving man sprawled out on the floor, groaning, blood streaming over his face. Aunt Cathy screamed.

  Gerald Steel walked up to Lucy, oblivious to the cries behind him, silent. She raised both hands to her lips, willing them to open, to say something. The wedding ring on her finger glittered in the candlelight.

  "You're late," she managed to whisper.

  "I'm not," he said, and smiled. The shadows danced in his eyes. He touched her face.

  That gesture of familiarity seemed to wake a sort of courage in Uncle Will.

  "Don't you touch my niece like that, Steel! She is a married woman now, and protected by the law from the depravity of the likes of you."

  "Shut up," Gerald Steel said, without turning to him. He was not looking at any of them, only at her. "I've come for the girl."

  "This is an outrage!" Uncle Will stormed. "If you think you can—"

  Gerald Steel turned and shot him in the face.

  Blood splattered, and Aunt Cathy screamed again, a piercing shriek that ended suddenly as she fainted on the table. Mr. Robert Nash was deathly pale, and his lips were trembling as he was trying to stammer out something that sounded half a protest and half a plea for mercy.

  "Mr. Steel, please, we can figure it all out, I'm a wealthy man, you know, respected. If you kill me, the law … the authorities won't stand for that…"

  "They'll what, hang me for murder?" There was a flicker of amusement in Gerald Steel's brown-golden eyes as he nodded to the body of Uncle Will on the floor, blood pooling under him.

  Mr. Robert Nash groaned.

  "Tie him to this nice wooden column post, boys," Gerald Steel said. "I'm not going to kill you, Mr. Nash. Yet."

  The rest was mayhem and blood. Lucy watched it all with wide staring eyes, her state of shock dulling the senses. She saw a few of Mr. Nash's men storm into the hall, only to be killed by Steel's men. The musicians tried to flee, but they were killed, too. Aunt Cathy came to her senses and tried to go at a large bearded man with a meat knife. He wrestled the blade from her easily, and opened her throat. He was the same man who had hit the servant with the wine bottle. Gerald called him Harry, Lucy remembered dully. She should have been horrified, despaired, watching her family and household members butchered.

  She was not. She thought she had hated Uncle Will and Aunt Cathy, and she had actually wished for their deaths, monstrous as it might have been. But now that they were dead, she did not feel any gloating triumph either. She was strangely calm, watching the massacre happen before her eyes. Part of her did not perceive it as real. It seemed like it was a dark dream she was having. And yet, her senses were acutely aware of everything, the raw, violent smell of blood mixed with the sweet overpowering scent of evening primroses, the shattering of glass amid the gunshots, the dead bodies washed in the candlelight.

  Aunt Cathy's dead hand was still clutching the meat knife's handle, and Lucy remembered the little silver dinner knife still tucked away in her sleeve. She wondered who she should use it on, and a little laugh escaped her lips, sounding half-mad. Aunt Cathy's eyes were glassy and staring at her, and she suddenly wanted to come up and close them. She made a move in her direction, but Gerald Steel caught her by the hand, holding her gently yet firmly.

  "No. Stay here, it's safer."

  He was shielding her, she realized suddenly. From the bullets. The shooting was all but done now, but some of Steel's men were fighting over Mr. Nash's valuables. Mr. Nash himself was still alive, tied to the column post and seemingly in a faint. His face was bruised and swollen from the beating he had got. Harry came over to him and fished his gold watch from his pocket, grinning at Gerald and giving him a wink.

  A man of property, Lucy suddenly remembered Aunt Cathy's words about Mr. Robert Nash. A respectable gentleman. She wanted to laugh again. Was she going mad?

  Gerald Steel put his hands on her trembling shoulders. She could not suppress that nervous laugh, and yet her eyes were shiny with tears.

  "There now. Don't be afraid," he said, in that deep, con
fident Gerald Steel voice. "You're with me now. You're mine. You're safe. Here, drink a little of this. It'll help calm you down."

  He handed her a glass, and she drank in little sips. It was whiskey, not wine. The hot liquid seemed to burn her throat, and she coughed, tears stinging her eyes, but then she felt a curious pleasant warm feeling spread through her body and calm her shaken nerves.

  "Better?" he asked, smiling. Can a murderer smile so beautifully?

  She nodded.

  "Have some more," he said, pouring for her.

  She obeyed him. She did feel much better now, only the world was spinning a little. He steadied her on her feet, his arm around her shoulders protectively. The world had gone mad around her, but she was safe in his arms, and she loved him. No matter how monstrous the world would deem it, no matter how wrong or mad or dangerous … she loved him, the confident and arrogant smile, the slightly curling hair going gray, the wrinkles in the corners of those eyes that could be so full of violent darkness, and so full of warm love. The candlelight brought out those golden flecks in his brown eyes, and the darkness was lit up by a need that was almost vulnerable.

  "They made me do it. Marry him," she whispered, pointing at the wedding ring on her finger.

  "I know," he said. He took the ring off her finger gently, and tossed it on the floor. Her hand stayed in his own. They were silent for a time.

  "Real corsairs are bad people, Lucy," he said.

  "I know," she said softly. "I … I don't care. You being bad and all."

  He pulled her closer to him, his lips on her own once more. Somewhere in another world, there was a sound from Mr. Nash tied to his post, but she never heard him. She was lost in Gerald's kiss once more, her lips opening beneath his, his tongue in her mouth. The kiss tasted slightly of tobacco and whiskey and danger, of her nighttime dreams of him when she woke up flushing, with a strange pulling hunger inside her.

  "No, leave my wife alone, you bastard…" Mr. Nash's voice was weak, but it broke through the magic drowning sensation Lucy was lost in, returning her to the real world. She glanced at the swollen bruised face of Mr. Robert Nash, her husband by law. She had never felt much for him, and the only things she felt now were pity and revulsion.

  That dangerous fire lit up in Gerald's eyes again. The predator was back again in an instant, a man who would not stop at crime and murder to get his way.

  "She’s not your wife, you idiot." Gerald Steel's voice sounded level and composed, but there was a suppressed rage in it, a dreadful storm threatening to come. "She has never been yours. You married her by force, and you'd take her and break her by force, and that is what you call law. But you never consummated that law of yours, did you?"

  "N-no," Nash stammered, his eyes so wide with fear the whites were showing.

  "Of course not," Gerald's eyes were shining, brimming with that darkness, as he pulled Lucy to him possessively. "I rode a horse to death to stop you from doing that. You wanted to steal her from me, didn't you? All of you here, with your law. Well, look what your law got you," he gestured at the blood-splattered hall.

  Lucy thought that if she had been a good woman, she would bend to her husband and clean the blood off his face, even if she despised him. But she was not a good woman. She pressed closer to Gerald and put a hand on his chest tentatively. She could feel his heart beating. She thought of him riding hard through the prairie, riding a horse to death to get to her in time. And in a flash she realized that it was true. She had never been Mr. Robert Nash's wife. She loved Gerald, and she belonged to him, as he belonged to her and with her, his heart beating under her fingertips. And she was not afraid to show it, to the whole world if need be.

  "You see," Gerald Steel smiled. He held her closer to him, covering her hand over his chest with his own. "Lucy loves me. Lucy is mine. And I want you to see it."

  He turned back to Lucy and kissed her again, this time even more passionately, the way he did that very first time, his lips laying claim to her mouth and leaving her breathless. Her head was spinning from the whiskey and the scent of flowers and the smell of blood and the scent of him, enveloped all around her. She swayed on her feet, but he held her, so gently and yet so firmly, his strong hands lifting her a little to sit her on the edge of the table. Her hands went to his chest again as if by their own accord, caressing his lean, hard body under the thin fabric of his white shirt, as she had wanted to do so many times and yet had not dared to before this night.

  But this was the night when all the laws were finally broken, that point of no return she had dreamed about. Her heart was fluttering in her chest as his hands ran over her body, caressing her, lifting the lacy skirt of her wedding dress and softly sliding his fingertips over the smooth and delicate flesh of her thighs.

  She was trembling, feeling so excited and so afraid at the same time. She licked her lips nervously, looking up at him, and that seemed to inflame him all the more, so that he started kissing her again, first her lips and then her neck and then lowering his mouth to her collarbone. All the time his hands were caressing her, his fingers circling her nipples under the dress, his other hand touching her through her underwear in that most secret place, in a sweet tormenting way that she had never dared to touch herself. She gasped, holding him closer to her, running her fingers through his thick silvery-gray curling hair. The candlelight was making her eyes swim with tears. She was aware of people watching them, Gerald's men looking at them, Mr. Nash groaning quietly … and yet she did not seem to care. This was their night for law-breaking, and she wanted it as desperately as she was frightened of it.

  He seemed to sense her fear, and stopped, looking at her face tenderly, his hand moving from beneath her skirt to rest gently on her knee. There was a question in his eyes, a question that he did not ask but that she understood.

  "Yes," Lucy whispered almost soundlessly, pulling him back closer to her.

  He grinned that Gerald grin he had, a little arrogant but so warm, the grin that always made her heart melt.

  "My Lucy," he whispered, his fingers undoing the hooks on her dress, freeing her from the corset at last, his eyes locking with hers. She felt herself blushing as she felt his big hardness press into her through his pants. Gerald grinned again, noticing her shyness and hardly feeling shy about it himself. He gave her a playful kiss on the lips, just a little peck while his fingers started playing with her nipples, brushing over them, circling them, pulling on them ever so slightly and making them so hard and sweetly aching. "My darling little girl."

  His hands were very gentle, but the delicate fabric of her undergarments tore nonetheless. Lucy felt cool air on her bare skin. She was very wet down there, she realized with embarrassment, as he lowered her onto the table, his arm sweeping the china from the white starched tablecloth, plates and glasses shattering on the floor. She knew she was blushing, and then she forgot all about feeling embarrassed, because he slid his hand between her thighs, right into that sweet wetness she was now so aware of, and his fingers made her gasp for air.

  He unbuttoned his pants, and when she saw how big and hard he was, she was afraid all over again. Yet she wanted so much to reach out and touch him there, and he seemed to have read her thoughts, for he took her hand and put it on himself. She had never seen a naked man, much less touched one, and she marveled at how powerful and hard he was. Her stroking fingers seemed to give him pleasure, as his eyes widened and he let out a sigh.

  "Oh, Lucy." They kissed again as he pinned her under him on the table. His hand was between her legs again, guiding them apart. She opened herself up for him, welcoming him, wanting to feel him inside her. But then Lucy cried out in pain as his large, hard manhood entered her. It hurt. He was so big, and she felt something give way in her as he filled her up.

  "Oh hush, my darling," he whispered, kissing her and looking in her tear-filled eyes tenderly. "I'm sorry I hurt you. It hurts a little at your first time, but the pain will go away soon. No, don't tense, relax a little … there, there now."


  She did as he said, relaxing her body and letting his movements take her, rocking her hips to his rhythm almost involuntarily. The pain was subsiding, mixing with a new delicious sensation of him filling her up so completely, his hardness claiming her deeper with each thrust. He went slow at first, but then his motions grew faster and harder, making her gasp and moan. It still hurt a little, but the pain and pleasure intermingled. She held tight to him, running her hands over his back, looking up at his smiling eyes and answering his kisses and sweet little words, giving herself to him.

  I'm a woman now … his woman, she thought with a little blushing smile, and the next thrust drove all the thoughts from her head, leaving her gasping for breath in his arms, clinging to him and whispering his name. The pleasure-pain seemed to grow unbearable, and then washed over her so intensely that her body started throbbing and contracting around him, leaving her shuddering in his arms, as she felt him releasing his seed into her with a moan.

  She nestled against his chest afterwards, and he caressed her hair softly, whispering tender words into her ear. She was aching and sore between her legs, and there was blood now on her torn wedding dress and the white tablecloth. She was a little scared at first when she saw the blood, but he comforted her.

  "It means that you were innocent, my darling Lucy." He smiled at her. He was a little out of breath himself, and sweat glistened in the cut of his half-open shirt. "It means that you are only mine."

  Afterwards, as Gerald was ordering his men to clear Nash's mansion of all portable valuables, Lucy was sitting on the table in her torn white dress, bewildered and sore and still in a state of shock, but happy, so very happy. If it was a crime to feel happy in such a situation as hers, she thought, let her be a criminal. She found she was feeling hungry now, and helped herself to a fruit bowl that had not been overturned onto the floor. The peach tasted sweet and delicious, and smeared her face with its juice. She dropped the pit on the floor. Gerald came up to her and wrapped his coat over her bared shoulders again, joking that he had done so before. She nodded at him and smiled. She was feeling sleepy and tired, after all the horror and happiness of this very long day. She looked at the white flower petals floating in the pools of blood on the floor.