Warrior's Prize Page 4

  Silver sighed, remembering. “I’m not sure Wannie knows about her past either; she was so young at the time.”

  Cherokee put the paper on the bedside table, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her forehead. “I don’t know if we did the right thing, not telling the kids everything we knew, but maybe it won’t ever matter if they don’t find out. The past is best left buried.”

  “You’re right,” she murmured. “Out here, people are judged on their actions, not their ancestors.”

  “I love you, sweet darlin’,” Cherokee whispered and kissed her forehead.

  He had to be sensing her thoughts. Silver snuggled down in his arms; two mature people, content to be where they were, content with each other. “We’ve done the best we could for them since the night the Duchess’s Palace burned down and we left Denver.”

  Cherokee reached for the telegram again. “I’m disappointed they’re not on their way home.”

  “Wannie’s too enamored with wealth and appearances,” Silver sighed. “I can tell by her letters. Her roommate’s family are evidently rich society people, but if they knew about Wannie’s background—”

  “Oh, don’t borrow trouble.” He leaned over to pull the blankets up around her small frame. “We’ll never have to meet that family, and now that Wannie’s graduated, she’ll never see them again, either.”

  “I guess I’m being silly, but I wouldn’t want Wannie hurt by anyone uncovering her past.”

  “Yes, you are being silly, Mrs. Evans. Now go back to sleep.” He gave her a reassuring pat. “There’s no reason for that scandal about Wannie’s past ever to come out!”

  THREE

  The Brewsters’ fine carriage wound its way through the estate grounds up the drive to the palatial Victorian mansion.

  “Why, Cleve, it’s beautiful!” Wannie gasped as she stared out the window. “Look, Keso, isn’t it wonderful?”

  Keso merely grunted.

  Alexa said, “Steel Manor is about like the other estates in the area; you’ll enjoy the visit.”

  “Just think, Wannie,” Cleve said and smiled at her, “someday, you will be mistress here.”

  His mother nodded. “I’m sure the daughter of a duchess is up to it.”

  Wannie winced, not wanting to remember her past. There was something shameful back there, she was certain of it, and the little she did know, she wanted to forget. The Brewsters would never accept her into their family if they knew.

  The carriage halted before the mansion. The ornate doors opened and an elderly butler and various footmen and maids in drab gray dress with crisp white aprons and caps hurried out to meet, them. Wannie thought they looked like so many harried mice, scurrying about as the coachman opened the door. Before Cleve could assist her, Keso reached to lift Wannie down, looking into her eyes a moment.

  As always, she was overwhelmed by the strength and power of her adopted brother. When she was a small child, she had idolized him, followed him around. She had thought he was the most wonderful male in the whole world besides Cherokee Evans. Now, he seemed so awkward and out of place next to the dapper and charming Cleve Brewster.

  The elderly butler bowed low to Mr. Brewster. “Welcome home, sir. ”We hope you had a pleasant trip.”

  Mr. Brewster nodded absently. “We’ve brought guests, Jeeves. Do see to them.”

  The servants were unloading the luggage as Keso struggled with the elderly butler over his bag. “I’m big enough to carry my own bag, thank you.”

  Wannie felt her face burn at the smiles of the others. “Keso, you’re not supposed to do that. Let him take it.”

  With seeming reluctance, Keso let go of the bag. “If you say so.”

  “Tell me,” Wannie said as she looked up at the lofty turrets and the imposing brick structure, “just why is it called Steel Manor?”

  Mr. Brewster smiled benevolently at her, his bald head gleaming through his thin blond hair. “Made my fortune in steel bayonets and swords during the war. Now its pots and pans, butcher knives, kitchen implements, farm machinery.”

  His wife wiped her plump face with a lace hankie. “It’s so trashy to talk of money.”

  “You’re right, Aunt Bertha,” Alexa agreed. “Only low-class people worry about money. Thank God, we have plenty! ”

  The butler bowed low as he opened the door and the group of travellers went inside.

  The interior of the mansion was even finer than the outside, Wannie thought in awe. Everywhere she looked were fine paintings, carved furniture, and crystal chandeliers. There was even a coat of arms in the grand front hall.

  Keso broke the silence. “It looks like a castle.”

  Mrs. Brewster smiled, evidently pleased as she peered at him over her spectacles. “Appropriate, don’t you think, since we’re to have the daughter of a Spanish duchess in the family? That’s the Brewster coat of arms. Some of my husband’s family came over on the Mayflower. Jeeves,” she addressed the old butler, “we’ll have tea served in the drawing room at four. All the best families do it.”

  “Tea. Balderdash!” the older Brewster glowered. “My ancestors helped throw the stuff in Boston Harbor.”

  “Cleveland, don’t be difficult,” his wife said.

  “And do shut up, Bertha,” he snapped, “I get so tired of your constant prattle.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence before Alexa gestured to Wannie. “Come along, Wannie—there’s a lovely guest room next to mine.”

  Wannie followed her as a footman carried the luggage up the stairs. She paused and looked back at Keso. He appeared ill at ease in the grand foyer—the exact opposite of the debonair Cleve. Of course, the handsome aristocrat had grown up in this elegant atmosphere.

  Her fiance smiled up at her. “I’ll take care of him, Wannie.”

  “Fine.” She returned his smile and gave an encouraging nod to her brother. “See you later.” Then she turned and followed Alexa. In the sumptuous room, a pretty, red-haired maid busied herself opening windows and hanging up dresses, shaking out wrinkles as she unpacked Wannie’s things.

  “Maureen,” Alexa said, “this is my roommate from school, Miss Evans. She’ll be our house guest for several weeks.”

  “Very good, ma’am.” The maid’s accent was Irish and she curtsied slightly.

  “Hello, Maureen,” Wannie said and smiled warmly at the girl but saw only curiosity in the green eyes. Then the girl returned to unpacking the luggage.

  Wannie looked about the expansive bedroom, almost awestruck. It was done in yellows with fine cherry furniture and expensive oil paintings. Crystal and imported glass knickknacks covered every dresser and tabletop. “Alexa, everything is beautiful!”

  “Think so?” Alexa sat down in a chair with a yawn. “I suppose I’ve gotten used to it.”

  The servant finished hanging up the clothes, then curtsied. “Miss Alexa, I’ll go to your room next. Is there anything special you want?”

  “Yes, do remember to press my ball gowns. We’ll be having several parties to introduce our guests.” She made a gesture of dismissal.

  The red-haired girl looked Wannie over as she left. “Yes, miss.”

  Wannie walked about the room, surveying its fine things, then paused to look out the window. “What lovely gardens and stables.”

  “Auntie’s showplace for our success. The finest families come to our events. However, your mother should really be the one to give the big party to announce your engagement.”

  Wannie thought of the isolated log cabin up in the Rockies. “You don’t know how my family lives, Alexa. I’m afraid the kind of people we see wouldn’t know what to do at a fancy ball.”

  She looked at the glittering diamond ring Cleve had given her and felt a flash of annoyance at the Evanses’ simple life style. It seemed so dull next to the way the Brewsters lived. “It isn’t as if the Evans’ didn’t have wealth and couldn’t have more,” she hastened to say. “I’m afraid they would think it silly.”

  “Well, soon you�
��ll be a Brewster and you can live our lifestyle,” Alexa said.

  “I’ve always thought this would be so wonderful,” Wannie said before she thought, “but Cleve’s parents don’t seem very happy.”

  Alexa shrugged. “Uncle Cleveland has his successful business and Aunt Bertha has her social position, and they both have Cleve. I suppose they don’t expect more.”

  Wannie thought about the warm affection Silver and Cherokee showed each other. “Maybe I expect too much from marriage.”

  Alexa laughed. “I think you do. In our social set, a plain girl like Aunt Bertha would never have gotten a husband if her family hadn’t been rich and the Brewster fortune almost gone.”

  “Alexa!” Wannie was shocked at her frankness.

  “It’s the truth and everyone knows it,” Alexa added as she began to take the pins from her yellow hair.

  Wannie felt uneasy gossiping about Cleve’s parents. “They both seem to dote on Cleve.”

  Alexa nodded. “He’s been spoiled worse than me, if that’s possible.” She laughed and shook her hair loose. “Uncle Cleveland is immensely proud of Cleve. He sees his only son taking over his kingdom someday, keeping the long, noble line of Brewsters going.”

  “I’ll certainly try to give Cleve a son.”

  “Then you’ll insure your position as Aunt Bertha has done.”

  “Alexa, Cleve adores me. I don’t need to insure my position.”

  Her schoolmate winked at her. “Love and beauty wouldn’t do you any good, my dear, if you didn’t have a flawless background and money, even if your adopted parents may seem a bit eccentric.”

  She was more than a little annoyed. “Silver and Cherokee aren’t eccentric.”

  Alexa got up from her chair. “From this family’s standpoint, they’d be thought so. They don’t seem to know what to make of your brother. I think he’s the most man I’ve ever met, even if he is a bit uncouth.”

  Wannie didn’t like anyone sneering at him. “Keso just comes from another environment where they have different values.”

  Alexa yawned. “You don’t need to be so defensive; he’s like a diamond in the rough, and maybe he just needs the right girl to polish him. By the way, everyone who is anyone in the best social circles will be coming the next several weeks.”

  Wannie didn’t answer, wondering if she would fit in with all the rich aristocrats.

  “I’m going to freshen up and take a nap,” Alexa said and walked to the door. “Feel free to do the same. Don’t forget tea time.”

  Alexa left and Wannie flopped on the four-poster with a sigh. Somehow, it annoyed Wannie that Alexa had set her sights on Keso. Alexa probably wanted to carry on a minor flirtation, but Wannie didn’t want him hurt. He was the sincere type and he wouldn’t understand her little coquettish game. Alexa was pretty. If anyone could turn him into a polished gentleman, the elegant blonde could. If Keso married Alexa, the Evanses had plenty of money for a fine mansion in Denver’s best section; certainly Alexa wouldn’t settle for anything less.

  Yet Wannie felt a twinge of longing for the homey log cabin and the pair who had raised her. They, and the tough, street-wise Cheyenne boy were really the only family she had ever known. What would they think of Cleve when she brought him to visit? More than that, what would Cleve and his family think of them?

  Wannie stared at the ceiling and tried to recall the past. The Evanses seemed loath to talk about it in detail, so she hadn’t asked much. As Wannie remembered, it was a grand hotel and Wannie’s real mother had owned it.

  Everyone had called her the Duchess. Wannie remembered almost nothing about her dark, beautiful mother except for her expensive jewels. Wannie had been playing dress-up with some of them and had her pockets full of priceless gems when the fire started.

  The Duchess had died in that fire. Wannie might have, too, except that Silver, her governess, risked her life to carry the child outside. The Duchess. Wannie wasn’t certain she was royalty, but Alexa had seemed so impressed when Wannie first mentioned it, and she had felt so lonely and intimidated by the snooty girls at Miss Priddy’s Female Academy, that perhaps she had embroidered the tale a little. There was no reason the Brewsters should ever learn any more about her past than what Wannie had told them.

  Keso was awestruck as he followed Cleve to the guest room on a ground floor wing of the imposing house. “It’s all so big.”

  Cleve lit his pipe and shrugged. The scent of rich, imported tobacco drifted on the warm air. “You’ll get used to it. There’s whiskey in the desk drawer.”

  Keso looked around the room. It was furnished in a masculine style with dark, carved furniture and prints of horses and fox hounds. “Cherokee doesn’t drink, so I never picked up a taste for it.”

  Cleve grinned. “I can see I’ve got a lot to teach you about the good things in life.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Yes?” Cleve said.

  A pretty redhead in a gray maid’s uniform stuck her head in the door, started to speak to Cleve, then paused as she saw Keso. “Oh, sir, I didn’t know you weren’t alone. I—I’ve put fresh linens out, sir.”

  “Fine. Maureen, this is Keso Evans.”

  Keso nodded. “Hello.”

  She made a slight curtsy. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ring, sir.”

  “You may go, Maureen.” Cleve frowned.

  She shut the door.

  “Pretty girl,” Keso said. “All the maids here are pretty.”

  “In my Harvard days, I used to bring friends home on holidays. Pretty maids can be quite entertaining to a bunch of rich, bored young men. Of course,” he hastened to add, “that was before I met Wannie, but I didn’t have the heart to fire them. Jobs are hard to come by for the lower classes.”

  “How kind of you.” Be fair to him, Keso admonished himself, you don’t really know him at all and damn it, you’re jealous because Wannie is going to marry him instead of you.

  Cleve reached in the desk and took out the bottle. “If you’re not going to use this, I might as well take it with me. We’ll be excused from the tea—it’s a ladies’ thing. Dinner is at eight. By the way, do you ride?”

  “Yes.” He might not dance well, but if there was one thing Keso could do, it was ride. With his Indian blood, he sat a horse like it was part of him.

  “Good—maybe we can get my friends together for some polo.”

  “Polo?” Keso shook his head, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is.”

  Cleve groaned. “I don’t suppose you fence or play lawn tennis, either.”

  Keso gave him a blank look.

  “Well, at least I’ve arranged a fox hunt for all the local gentry tomorrow.” Cleve sighed. “You do hunt, don’t you?”

  Keso nodded. “I’m good with a Winchester.”

  “I meant a fox hunt. You have the proper clothes?”

  Keso felt like a country bumpkin again. “I reckon not by your standards.”

  Cleve sauntered to the door, still clutching the bottle. “It’s not proper, but I suppose you can ride in whatever you’ve got. Last hunt,” he announced proudly, “I was awarded the brush.”

  “Only the tail? Who got the rest of the fox?”

  Cleve looked amused. “The dogs, of course.”

  Rich white people were indeed a puzzlement. “Perhaps I fail to understand. A great many people go to a lot of trouble chasing after a little fox and if they catch it, they keep only the tail?”

  Cleve rolled his eyes in evident exasperation. “With your lack of background, I suppose it’s understandable that you miss the point. See you at dinner.”

  Keso nodded, still puzzled as Cleve left. He had a distinct feeling that Wannie’s fiance intended to show him up tomorrow, make him look stupid. Keso smiled to himself. Young Brewster had his work cut out for him if he thought he could outride a Cheyenne!

  A servant had already unpacked his things, so there was nothing for him to do. Later, he would clean up for dinner, but now h
e sat down in the chair, took the little silver ring from his pocket, and turned it over and over in his big, brown hand. He ought to throw it away, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that What a naive fool he had been to hope that Wannie might think of him in any way except as a brother. Keso was already dreading spending several weeks at Steel Manor and meeting all the Brewsters’ high-toned friends.

  With a sigh, he put the antique ring back in his pocket. Compared to the ring Cleve had given her, this looked insignificant and cheap. Keso stood up and walked over to the French doors that led onto a veranda. He opened them and looked out. At least this Hudson River country was beautiful, though not as lovely and cool as the Rockies at this time of the summer. Keso’s curiosity was up about the Brewsters’ horses. If there was anything he appreciated from living in the West, it was good horses. He went out on the veranda and turned down the gravel path through the formal rose garden. The heavy scent of blooms drifted on the late afternoon breeze—big cabbage roses, heavy with fragrance and as red as blood. He took a deep breath of their perfume. The scent he loved best were the wildflowers that Wannie wore in her hair back home. In the distance, he could see the stables and sauntered down there.

  He whistled aloud as he walked into the big white barn and saw the many fine mounts in the stalls. Perhaps a dozen grooms and stable-hands bustled about. “These are some of the finest horses I’ve ever seen.”

  An older, blondish man stopped polishing a bridle and grinned. “Ah, I like a man who appreciates a fine horse! I’m Ian O’Hearn, the head groom.” His Irish accent was not strong; perhaps he had been in this country many years.

  “I’m Keso Evans,” he said and reached out to shake hands. The other hesitated, then shook.

  “Ain’t you one of the swells visiting the nabobs up on the hill? Sorry, governor, I hadn’t meant to be so familiar. I know me place.” Once this man might have been handsome, with his light-colored hair now turning gray, but a groom’s life was not an easy one.

  Keso shrugged to put the man at ease. “I’m not anyone important.”

  “A friend of the young master’s, perhaps?”

  “No, I’m invited to be a house guest because my sister was Miss Griswold’s roommate at school.”