Montgomery - The Awakening Part 21

He drove her back to the ranch slowly, as if he didn't want to part with her, then stopped the car at the end of the long drive. No two people ever walked more slowly as they made their way back to the house.

"I guess I better go in," Amanda said. She wasn't touching him but she wanted him to take her in his arms. "If we were engaged, perhaps a goodnight-" she began.

"I touch you, Amanda, and in thirty seconds our clothes would be off and we'd be rolling around on your mother's lawn. You go inside and I'll go to my hotel room. I'll see you at headquarters, and tomorrow I'll take you to the carnival."

She stepped toward him. "Hank," she whispered.

He nearly jumped away from her. "Go on, Amanda, get out of here."

Reluctantly, she turned and went into the dark, silent house. Once inside, she got into her nightgown, snuggled in her empty bed and wished he were with her. When she went to sleep she didn't realize that it had been hours since she'd thought of Taylor.

Now, awake, she wanted to stay in bed and think about every moment of last night.

But it wasn't to be. After a brief knock, Mrs. Gunston barged into Amanda's room. Her face showed her anger, but this morning Amanda felt too good to care.

"Two a.m.," Mrs. Gunston said. "You were out until two o'clock in the morning, and I don't imagine I'm the only one who heard you come in. It's disgraceful. I doubt that Master Taylor will want you after this."

"You think not?" Amanda said languidly.

"Look at you, you're a sight to behold. Lazing about in bed half the day, your hair down like that. I know what's going on. I'm not blind. It's that Dr. Montgomery. You're like all the women in this town, chasing after a pretty face. Everyone in town knows he's been seeing one of those Eiler girls. To men like him girls are just conquests to be made. And what has he got from you, missy? Anything he wants? Did he buy you that dress? Did you give him what he wants for the price of a dress? You-"

"You are fired, Mrs. Gunston," Amanda said, not even raising her voice.

"You can't fire me. I work for Mr. Driscoll."

"Who works for my father and therefore, in essence, works for me. I repeat, you are fired. I will instruct Taylor to give you two weeks' severance pay, but you are to be gone by this evening."

"But you can't-" Mrs. Gunston said, but her voice had lost its power. She turned on her heel and left the room.

"Bravo!"

Amanda looked up to see her mother standing in the doorway and grinning broadly. "Aren't you going to be late for work, dear?" Grace said as she shut her daughter's bedroom door, and Amanda could hear her whistling in the hall.

Amanda got out of bed and hurriedly rushed through dressing. She didn't want to miss one minute of work. She supposed she should feel awful about firing Mrs. Gunston, and perhaps she should worry about repercussions from her father and Taylor, but all she felt was pleased that she'd gotten rid of the tyrannical old witch.

She hurried down the stairs and rushed into the dining room. All that dancing last night had made her ravenous. She stopped abruptly when she saw Taylor sitting at the table, a newspaper in front of him. It seemed like years since she'd seen him, but the moment she did see him she became Amanda-the-student again. Her back seemed to remember that steel brace he'd made her wear and she held herself rigid.

"Good morning," she said in a cool, remote voice, with no enthusiasm or laughter in it.

Taylor put his paper down and looked at her as she seated herself beside him. The maid appeared with a poached egg and a dry piece of toast. Taylor waved it away. "Bring Miss Caulden bacon and scrambled eggs and biscuits with b.u.t.ter and honey. Tea or coffee?" he asked Amanda.

"T-tea," she managed to say.

When the maid was gone, Taylor looked at Amanda. "I believe we need to talk."

For some reason, Amanda felt a forboding about what was coming. She wanted to postpone hearing what he had to say. "I need to get to the Union Hall. The people will be arriving and I need to talk to them. By our calculation there are sixteen languages spoken. I really don't know too many of them, but sometimes we can find one person who speaks a language I do know and we can tell the person about the union. Sometimes it's almost humorous. It will take as many as five of us to reach a man who speaks, say, some Chinese dialect. It's really very interesting, and I'm needed-"

Taylor put his hand over hers. "Amanda, I love you."

"Oh," Amanda said. "Oh."

He removed his hand when the maid placed the heaping plate of food before her. Amanda began to eat, but the flavor of the food made her think of Dr. Montgomery. Usually, when she was eating delicious food, she was with him. Dry, tasteless food was what she ate when she was with Taylor.

Taylor started talking again when they were alone. "I don't think I've done very well in changing from being your teacher to being a suitor. There are things in life that are difficult for me, and one of them is expressing my feelings."

She could see how difficult this was for him, and part of her wanted to tell him not to express himself. She wished she could get away and go to the Union Hall, then to the carnival tonight. Please, she prayed, don't let anything ruin the carnival tonight.

"I was awake all night," he said. "I heard you come in."

Who didn't? she thought.

"I don't know and I don't want to be told what kept you out so late last night, but I can't help but feel that some of it is my fault. I don't know if you realize that the reason I have kept you under such strict discipline is because I have been afraid of losing you. I know you believe the ranch has a great deal to do with why I asked you to marry me and, to be honest, financial security is important to me, but I asked you to marry me because I love you."

He looked at her, and his dark eyes that Amanda had always feared were full of hurt and pain. "You have given me back my faith in women, Amanda. My mother-" He stopped and turned his head away.

Her eyes widened. Amanda knew nothing about his family. "Your mother?" she asked softly.

He looked back at her, and Amanda thought perhaps she saw tears in his eyes. She put her hand over his.

"My mother betrayed me, and I thought all women were like her, but you're not, Amanda. You're good and kind, and I... I have treated you abominably."

"No you haven't," she protested, squeezing his hand. "You have taught me so much. I am probably the best educated female in America."

He gave her a grateful little smile. "Then you don't hate me?"

"Hate you? Of course not. We're engaged to be married, remember?" She started to hold up her ring to show him, but she'd left it upstairs again.

His smile broadened. "Amanda, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't really know much about courting, but I'm going to try. From now on you're not my pupil and I'm not your teacher. No more schedules; no more lessons. We'll just do what other engaged couples do. Amanda, I want us to be happy."

So why aren't I happy? Amanda thought. Why do I want to run into my room and cry for about four years? "Th-that sounds wonderful," she said.

"You don't look very happy," he said teasingly. "Maybe you need some proof." He turned in his chair and patted his knee. "Come sit on my lap."

Horror was the only word to describe what Amanda felt at his suggestion.

"Don't look so shocked, Amanda. It's a perfectly proper thing for an engaged couple to do."

Stiffly, she stood, and he reached out his hands and pulled her onto his lap.

"Now, doesn't that feel nice? Amanda, you really are beautiful." His hands went up her arms and he began trying to pull her toward him to kiss her.

Images were going through Amanda's head: She was sitting on Hank's lap in the cleaning closet. "I guess I would kiss him," she'd said. "No," Hank had answered, "start subtly. Kiss my neck, unb.u.t.ton my s.h.i.+rt, put your hands in my hair."

Taylor kissed her, but nothing about the kiss made her relax at all.

He pulled away and looked amused. "I can see it's going to take some time. Amanda, I know that you'd probably prefer to be in your room studying, but there's more to life than books. After we're married, there are certain duties a wife performs for her husband. Not duties, exactly, but I do believe you could come to enjoy what happens between a man and a woman."

Amanda sat rigidly on his lap and remembered Hank saying, "Taste me."

"I believe I could learn," she said.

"Then relax, Amanda," he said in the voice of Taylor-the-teacher.

Acting out of reflex from years of being obedient, she slumped against him and put her head on his shoulder.

He snuggled her against him, seeming to be content, while Amanda had the absurd idea that they didn't fit together. She thought she might be too heavy for Taylor's thin body, and she also sensed that, although he said he wanted her to relax, he'd be appalled if she turned to him and caressed his ear with her tongue. She couldn't help thinking of Hank: she seemed to weigh nothing to him as he tossed her over fences and lifted her in and out of cars, and nothing shocked him.

"Are you willing to give me a chance at being your lover instead of your tutor?" Taylor asked.

"Of course," Amanda said. "If we are to be married-"

"If!"

"When we are married, we will be l-lovers."

Taylor chuckled. "My shy little flower. I will introduce you to love. I don't mean to brag, but I have had some experience."

Me, too, she wanted to say, but she was sure that wouldn't go over too well.

He held her away to look at her. "We'll start tonight. I'll pick you up at your Union Hall-I should see where you have your little job-and we'll go to the carnival in Terrill City."

"The carnival?" Amanda gasped. "But-"

"Is there something wrong with the carnival? Perhaps you'd rather go somewhere else. A dance, perhaps. A motion picture? We could just walk in the moonlight. Perhaps a moonlight picnic? That would be nice. We could take a chocolate cake. I know how you love chocolate."

Amanda could bear no more. She got off his lap. "The carnival will be wonderful. I really must go now to my"-she hesitated-"to my little job. I will see you tonight."

"No kiss goodbye?" he asked lightly.

She bent forward to kiss him and he put his hand to the back of her head and turned her head to give her a hard, openmouthed kiss while his other hand moved down her arm to touch the side of her breast.

She jerked away from him abruptly.

He chuckled. "See, I can be something besides a teacher. Go on now. I'll see you this evening."

Stiffly, Amanda left the dining room. Moments later she was in the back of the limousine on the way to the Union Hall. Now she had everything she wanted out of life: Taylor loved her; he was treating her as an adult and not a schoolgirl, and tonight she was going to a carnival with a man she had loved since she was a child. She was the most fortunate, the luckiest woman on earth.

So why did she feel as if her life were over? Why did she feel like hiding in her room and never coming out?

By the time she got to the Union Hall, her body and face were rigid with unshed tears. The first person she saw was Hank, and for a moment his eyes met hers and caught fire. She looked away.

He came to her desk and leaned over her. "You're late," he whispered. "Out late last night?"

Just his breath on her ear sent chills along her body. "You may take the time out of my wages," she said coolly, moving to the other side of the desk. "Wages which you haven't paid me, I might add."

Hank moved next to her. "Has something happened? If that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Taylor did anything to you, I'll-"

"Taylor told me he loves me and he's taking me to the carnival tonight, Dr. Montgomery. I really do thank you for your tutoring of me. It looks as if it's worked perfectly." She held out her hand for him to shake. "I will owe you my undying grat.i.tude."

He looked at her, then at her hand. "You're quite welcome," he said just as coolly. "If you need any more... help"-he looked her up and down in an insolent way-"let me know." He took his wallet from inside his coat pocket and pulled out two fives and slapped them on her desk. "For services rendered. Now, are you planning to work or has the rich Miss Caulden more important things to do today?"

"I can do more work in a day than you can in a week," she said, wis.h.i.+ng he'd just get out of her sight so she wouldn't have to remember kissing him or dancing with him, or making love with him.

"We'll see about that." He turned away and went to his own desk.

Everyone in the hall had heard, of course. Joe looked at Reva and shook his hand as if to say, hot one. Reva looked away and smiled, but the smile didn't last long. She'd got Amanda away from Hank, but she didn't like to think of that lovely Mr. Driscoll with Amanda. Either man, Amanda couldn't lose. The fact that she had both of them enraged Reva.

Hank knew he was being childish but he couldn't contain his anger at Amanda. She'd always told him the truth, that she only wanted Taylor. She'd wanted to learn about s.e.x so she could entice her fiance. It was just that it had somehow not seemed real. He'd never actually believed she meant to marry that cold, sanctimonious b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

He was slamming papers on his desk and snapping at everyone when Reva glared at him. "What did you want?" she asked. "Did you want to marry Amanda? If so, why don't you go ask her and stop making the rest of us miserable?"

"No, I don't want to marry her," he snapped. "She's in love with that cold fish Driscoll and besides, she's a little-" Prig? That was no prim and proper miss who danced with him last night. It was no prig who sat on his lap in the cleaning closet. And the woman who begged him to make love to her...

"Haven't you got any work to do?" Hank snapped at Reva, then when she turned away he grabbed her arm. "Go to the carnival with me tonight?"

Reva rolled her eyes. "Amanda is going to the carnival with her fiance, so you just happen to show up with another woman. Right?"

"You want to go or not?"

"Why not?" she said in disgust. "It can't be worse than my other dates with you. Hank, when you leave, this town is gonna curl up and die from boredom."

Amanda was glad for all the work Dr. Montgomery piled on her, and she was sure some of it was contrived, but at least it kept her from thinking. She went to lunch by herself, and for the first time since she'd met Hank, she wasn't hungry.

When she got back to the Union Hall, two men had got into a fight over a very pretty young woman and one man had plunged a knife into the other one. There was an hour's chaos while the doctor and the sheriff were summoned.

The sheriff wanted to put Hank in jail.

"He caused it and he's gonna pay," Sheriff Ramsey said, reaching for Hank's arm.

"Unless you have some proof-" Hank began.

Amanda stepped between the two. The sheriff was a short, thick man with a neck as big around as his head and he'd had the nickname "Bulldog" since he was a child. Amanda had often seen him talking to her father. "Dr. Montgomery had nothing to do with the fight," she said.

Sheriff Ramsey gave the utmost respect to Amanda because her father secretly paid him a monthly stipend for "extra" protection. "Miss Caulden, I don't know what you're doin' here, but this man is a menace to our peaceful community. He wants to start a war between the pickers and the ranchers. I hear he's givin' out guns, and here's proof he's supplyin' 'em with knives."

Amanda was a bit bewildered at this, her first real taste of prejudice. "No one has supplied any guns or knives, and I can a.s.sure you that all we're doing is telling people that they have a right to join a union."

"Miss Caulden, if you'll pardon me for contradictin' you, all these people want is bloodshed." He looked at Hank and pointed. "And yours'll be the first blood that's shed." He looked back at Amanda. "I advise you to get out of here before somethin' awful happens. I'm goin' right now to speak to your daddy. I'm sure he don't know what you're gettin' yourself into." He turned and stomped out of the hall, two men carrying the wounded picker behind him.

Amanda turned to Hank. "What did he mean, bloodshed?"

"Some people believe that the only way to have a union is with violence. They think no one in the world listens to problems until you first get their attention, and the best way to do that is with a little blood being spilled."

He was watching her intently as he saw her digest this information. She'll probably run back to her books and her safe little world now, he thought.

"But if we explain to these people about unions, we can form one without violence."

"Forming a union is easy. It's when the unionists present their grievances to the owners that the anger starts. How do you keep the owners from laughing at a pet.i.tion?"