A Man to Call My Own

Chapter 26

MARIAN WAS AWAKENED AN hour before dawn by a slamming door and shouts in the hall. Her sister was on the rampage about something.

At home, Marian would have turned over and put a pillow over her ears to try to get back to sleep. This home was new, though. The people in it weren't used to Amanda's tactics yet. So she crawled out of bed with a disgusted sigh and tried to find her robe in the dark.

"I need another room!" Amanda was shouting in the hall. "The one you gave me is intolerable. It's bad enough this house is as rustic as an old log cabin, but it's also as hot as a furnace."

Kathleen had apparently arrived to find out what the noise was all about, because her voice, while not loud, was still clear, "There are no other rooms."

"Find one! Unless you want me sleeping on the porch where all your neighbors will notice."

"Aside from the fact that my husband and I used to do that during a hot spell or two, we have no neighbors anywhere near enough to notice."

"So you're going to force me to sleep on a porch? This is how you intend to conduct your guardianship?" Amanda demanded.

Having finally found her robe in the dark, Marian arrived in the narrow hall outside the bedrooms in time to see Kathleen's vivid blush. Kathleen had brought a lamp with her. Amanda was standing there in her thin underwear with her hands on her hips, putting on a good act of being furious.

"I will be happy to give you my room, but it won't make much difference," Kathleen said, still trying to keep her voice calm. "You haven't adjusted to this warmer climate yet. And I do remember what it was like, my first months here. We arrived in the spring and were still building the ranch that first summer.

It was horrible. But by the following summer the heat wasn't so bad. We had adjusted to it."

"Why are you telling me this?" Amanda demanded. "I hope you know I could care less?"

Marian sighed in exasperation. She should be immune by now to feeling disgust over something she'd experienced so many times before, but she wasn't, at least not when other people were involved.

She crossed her arms over her chest, and asked her sister dryly, "Did you force yourself to stay up all night, Amanda, just so you could wake the household before dawn? Of course you slept for most of the day yesterday, so I suppose it wasn't all that hard."

"I can't sleep in this miserable heat!"

"Of course you can. I managed to with no problem. It wasn't even that hot last night."

"And just how would you know?" Amanda shouted. "You were sleeping."

Having done what she'd intended, which was to wake Kathleen and put her into an amends-making frame of mind, Amanda slammed back into her bedroom. Kathleens shoulders slumped, either with relief or dejection, it was hard to tell which. Marian put her arm around her aunt and urged her to follow her downstairs.

"It will be dawn soon," she said. "No point in trying to get back to sleep. Let's make some coffee and finish that talk we started last night."

Kathleen nodded, but admitted, "I'm not very good at making it."

"I don't know how either, but I watched Chad make it one morning. Between us, we should come up with something that's at least drinkable."

It wasn't, and they both laughed over the result, which eased some of the tension for Kathleen at least. Marian knew Consuela would be arriving soon, so she immediately broached the subject at hand.

"What you witnessed upstairs was mostly, if not entirely, contrived," she began.

"She was drenched with sweat," Kathleen replied. "And I do remember how miserable I was with the unusual heat my first months here."

"She was drenched with water," Marian corrected her. "On her temples, forehead, neck, and chest. If you had looked closely, you wouldn't have found her drenched at any of the normal places where sweat first gathers. Not that it really matters. It was still a performance for your benefit."

"Why?"

"So you'll send her home with your blessing to marry whomever she wants."

Kathleen frowned. "I can't do that. I didn't ask for the responsibility, but I was given it, to make sure you girls aren't taken advantage of by fortune hunters or other men of questionable motives."

"I know, but you see, that doesn't matter to Amanda. She's very self-centered."

"Like my brother was?"

"Yes. But unlike your brother, she can, and will, get very nasty if she doesn't get her way. She didn't want to come here. She wants to go home. And she really resents that now she must get permission to marry, when she always expected our father to let her marry whomever she chose."

"Would he have?"

"Probably," Marian said. "Well, it would have been easy for him to, since all her suitors at home were quite acceptable to him. She's also furious that her inheritance is out of her reach until she does marry. She would have married immediately just for that if it didn't require your blessing. She just can't stand being denied anything."

"So the problem is that my approval is required, as was stipulated in your father's will? It's too bad some of her suitors didn't elect to follow her here so I could meet them. I have a feeling that what my brother would have found acceptable isn't necessarily what I would deem acceptable."

"That's quite possible. Personal wealth was the only criteria he ever considered important in a suitor. The same goes for my sister, actually; at least, she won't even look at a man unless he's well-to-do. And some of those suitors would have followed her, to the ends of the earth if it meant they could win her. She's very good at keeping men dangling—and from finding out what she's really like."

"Is one of them coming then?" Kathleen asked. "That might be a solution."

"No. The one who offered to come, she cut him to the quick. And we departed so soon after the funeral, the others didn't even know she was leaving town."

"Well, we have good men here for her to choose from, a few who are even quite rich," Kathleen replied. "I can think of at least four offhand that I could easily approve of. She already knows one of them."

"Chad?"

"Yes, he's probably considered the best catch around these parts."

It wasn't going to be easy for her to talk about Chad and Amanda as a pair. She tried to be unbiased in doing so, without revealing her own feelings in the matter.

"She hasn't exactly been nice to him, since she had the impression that he was just an employee of yours, and that put him beneath her notice. Which doesn't mean he's not already smitten with her. Most men who meet her usually are. And now that she knows he's more than that, she might even consider him as a last resort."

Kathleen chuckled. "Chad would probably be highly insulted, to hear himself called a 'last resort.' "

Marian felt the blush starting. "Please don't repeat that to him. It's certainly not my opinion. It's just that Amanda isn't going to want any man from this part of the country when she has her mind set on forcing you to send her home so she can do as she pleases. But if she doesn't get her way in that, then yes, she'll probably pick a man here just to get it over with."

"Just to get it over with?" Kathleen repeated.

"If she does marry someone here, she'll badger him and make his life miserable until he agrees to take her home to Haverhill because she wont stay here any longer than she has to."

"I hate to say it, sweetie, but it would be a rare man indeed who would uproot himself for his wife's convenience. I turned down a half dozen proposals back home waiting for a man who didn't want to stay in Haverhill; I knew all those others would never consider leaving. A wife doesn't exactly have a choice in the matter."

"I know that, and you know that, but Amanda views things only from her own perspective, and that doesn't include being told she can't have what she wants."

"Yes, but she's gotten away with that because my brother let her. A husband isn't likely to tolerate that sort of nonsense."

"I hope you're right, Aunt Kathleen. I'd still pity the man if she has to marry one here. Actually, I'd pity any man she marries, no matter where. It's unfortunate, but I really don't think she will make a good wife. She doesn't have it in her to make someone else happy. She's too self-centered."

"Now that's too bad. Sounds like I'd be doing a man a disservice to allow him to marry her."

Marian groaned to herself. She hadn't wanted to give that impression. She wanted Amanda to get married just as much as Amanda now did.

"Not if he knows what to expect and wants her anyway," Marian offered.

"I suppose," Kathleen agreed reluctantly.

Marian sighed. "I didn't tell you all this to make your job seem impossible, merely to warn you about what to expect so you aren't manipulated into doing something against your better judgment."

"I understand that, sweetie, and I do appreciate it." And then Kathleen chuckled. "If I didn't know better, I'd think that giving me guardianship of Amanda was Mortimer's way of getting even for my taking myself out of his sphere of influence. He didn't like me, but he did like rubbing my nose in how useless he thought I was.

"I'm sure he didn't the before Amanda was settled in marriage just to spite you."

Kathleen grinned. "I know."

Marian smiled back, understanding now that her aunt had just been trying to lighten the mood some. She still had to caution her, "If you'll keep in mind that what you've seen so far is nothing compared to how bad it can get, you'll have an easier time dealing with it."

"What about yourself? It doesn't bother you that you have to wait on your inheritance until you marry?"

"I haven't given it much thought, actually, but then it's not something I expected this soon anyway. I guess I don't see marriage as a form of independence the way Amanda does."

"You aren't hankering to go home like she is?"

"No, I could care less if I ever see Haverhill again. Besides, I kind of like it here in Texas. I probably would have made a good pioneer."

Kathleen chuckled. "I know what you mean. I loved Texas from the moment I stepped off the boat. I'm glad those few mishaps you had on the way here didn't affect your opinion adversely."

Marian grinned. "I wouldn't exactly call train and stage robberies mishaps, but in reflection, they were probably more exciting than frightening, at least, certainly something I never would have had the chance to witness at home."

"It's too bad your sister didn't view them that way." Kathleen shook her head. "It's amazing that you two turned out so different."

"Not really. She's a result of our father's indulgence. I'm a result of his indifference."

"I'm sorry—no, actually, I'd say you were the lucky one. It probably didn't seem like it while you were growing up, but I'm sure you've realized it by now."

Lucky? Not yet. But soon—unless she had to stand back and watch Amanda marry Chad as a last resort. For her aunt's sake, though, she nodded. She'd given Kathleen enough to think about. The warning had been necessary. Discussing her own pathetic situation wasn't.