Rebel (10 page)

“Settle down, hellion. My God, but you’ve acquired a frightful temper!” he told her angrily.

She had a temper? He was a damned madman. “You haven’t seen the half of it yet,” she assured him, eyes narrowed with warning. She could kill him. Simply kill him.

“You might have been better served to grow up under the influence of a stern matron—”

“Don’t you dare insult my father.”

“Miss McMann,” he said, quite grave then, and pushing himself to a position where he straddled over her—arms irritatingly crossed over his chest. “I would never dare insult so gentle and good a man as your father. And there lies the base of this disaster.”

“If you will just let me go—”

“You can’t go, and surely you must know it.”

“But—”

“Peter O’Neill is a vicious young braggart who will do his very best to create all the havoc he can out of this situation. Lavinia is hurt and believes herself scorned, and under such circumstances she will likely be even more vicious than Peter. By the time this story gets to
the second listener, we’ll have been fornicating so passionately in the bushes that the birds were blushing and we were never aware of their arrival.”

“So what is your suggestion?”

He hesitated, his next words seeming to pain him. And still, no words could have astounded her more.

“Obviously,” he said flatly, “we have no choice but to marry.”

Alaina felt the blood draining from her face. “No,” she said softly.

He shook his head, staring down at her, and she wished again that she might have just disappeared into the cool depths of the pool. He didn’t care for her; he had no desire for her. He considered her a poorly reared, careless little wanton who had just gotten them both into a terrible situation—but he would do his duty.

Oddly enough, she felt like laughing. Peter had told her that no respectable man could ask for her hand in marriage. No family held more regard within the state than the McKenzies. It was all so sad, and so damned ludicrous.

“Apparently you didn’t hear me,” Ian said irritably. “We have no choice.”

Did he think that she was one of his military men? That he could command her to his will?

“No, there is always a choice.”

“How will your father feel, Miss McMann, when all this is thrown upon him?” he inquired with chill courtesy.

She bit fiercely into her lower lip. How would her father feel? Devastated. No matter if he understood that she had just wanted to swim in the clear pool. It might come out that she had indulged in a foolish crush on Peter O’Neill, and the very fact that his daughter had been caught naked…

She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to imagine what her father would think and feel. He would most certainly feel that he had ruined her life by not raising her properly.

“There will be scandal no matter what,” she whispered.

“Maybe. And maybe we can circumvent Lavinia and Peter.”

“How? There is no way to do that. No matter what, we must go back. No matter what we say, it will appear that you are marrying me simply because we were caught and because you have to do so, and the scandal—”

“We marry before we go back,” he interrupted impatiently.

“That’s quite impossible—”

“No, actually, it’s not. Reverend Dowd did not come to my father’s party today due to a fierce toothache; he is home with his wife and brother-in-law. It’s a half hour’s brisk walk there and a ten-minute ride back, since we can borrow a horse from him. We return to the party quite distressed that our marital status was discovered before either of us has had a chance to tell our respective parents of our decision to elope.”

“But I am not of legal age.”

“The ceremony will be legal unless your father chooses to have it annulled.”

Alaina just stared at him blankly. He had the answer: the perfect answer. Because he was right. To salvage their standing within the world—not to mention the devastated feelings of their parents—they would have to marry.

And again, he was right: It would be far better to marry, pretend that they had done so quite some time ago, and therefore deflect the efforts of Peter and Lavinia to see that they were totally mortified and humiliated and to create horrible friction—and perhaps even bloodshed—within their families.

But as she looked up at Ian, her heart seemed to falter.

Marry. Ian McKenzie.

He suddenly seemed a great deal older; distant, different. A determined man who knew his own mind and would brook no opposition to going about life as he saw fit. Waging what battles he determined he must win.

She couldn’t be his
wife
. She suddenly felt quite ill, well aware that she might never rid her life of the tempest she had inadvertently brought about today. She didn’t want to admit she was afraid of the demands that he would make upon a wife, afraid to cast her soul into the hands of a man who was convinced she had caused
all this with her own salacious desire to seduce another man—one he seemed to heartily despise.

She didn’t know Ian at all; oh, Lord, except what she had learned today.

Not true! She had known him once. She knew that he had spent time in the hammocks and swampland down south with his uncles and cousins, he spoke both the Hitichi of the Mikasuki tribes and the Muskogee of the Seminoles. He’d learned the hard lessons of an Indian youth, and Sydney had told her once with pride that Ian could wrestle a full-grown male gator—and win. The trouble between Ian and Peter might well have begun many years ago, because she remembered now she had heard that when they were boys, Peter and Ian had come to blows because Peter had made a disparaging remark about the Indians. Ian had bloodied Peter’s nose and cost him a tooth, but controlled himself before further damage had been done.

Maybe she had known him at one time, but she’d been a little girl then, his baby cousin Sydney’s friend, trailing along after him, Jerome, Brent, and Julian as they fished and trapped the river, bay, and woods.

That was long ago. A different time and place. A different world.

Now, it was quite true: They were strangers; she really hadn’t seen him in years.

Oh, yes. She had seen him. Seen him from head to toe, in the crystal-clear water.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t answer. She still hadn’t answered when he rose, reached down, and pulled her to her feet. He took her hand, threaded his fingers through hers, and started walking.

She followed in silence for a long while. Peter and Lavinia had naturally returned by now. They wouldn’t go straight to either Jarrett McKenzie or Theodore McMann. Perhaps Peter would go to Tara McKenzie, pretending to be terribly distressed about her son’s actions. Or perhaps Peter and Lavinia would just begin a whispering campaign that would take its time getting through to the poor, side-blinded scientist Teddy McMann, and the pillar of the community, the highly respected Jarrett McKenzie.

She suddenly pulled back, tugging on the hand that held hers.

“Ian, you’re not thinking this through. This is… marriage,” she said breathlessly, seeking out his dark blue eyes with the gravity of it all in her own. “How do we live with this? We can’t just—”

“Do you see a way out?” he inquired politely.

“But, my God, this is so serious.”

“Indeed.”

“Divorce will be a greater scandal.”

His eyes lit upon her. “There won’t be a divorce. Not now. I have to return to military service. I travel frequently; you’ll seldom see me. And our pathetic little problems aren’t really going to mean much, I don’t think. In a very short while…” he shrugged. “There might well be a war on, and what has happened today really won’t mean a damned thing.”

“War?”

He didn’t reply; he was walking again.

“War?” she repeated. “Ian, there won’t be a war! If there is trouble, Florida will simply secede from the Union. Other states will do the same; they’ll form a new nation. Damn you, Ian—”

He didn’t respond to her. He was in a hurry.

Brisk
was a poor description for the way that he moved. She was practically running to keep up with him, and more breathless than ever, which made argument incredibly difficult.

The next thing she knew, she was plowing into his back in front of the reverend’s pretty, picket-fenced lawn. Ian opened the gate; she followed him through. Within a few steps, they stood before the reverend’s door, waiting.

Marriage. It was binding. It would change her life, change her dreams.

“Ian.”

He didn’t hear her.

“Ian!” She was shaking again; she couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing so.

He looked down at her.

She moistened her lips. “I can’t. I… can’t.”

“You have to. You rolled the dice when you decided
to skinny-dip. Now we deal with the lot we’ve been cast.”

“Well, you know, it might have helped the roll a hell of a lot if you hadn’t been naked and in the water… groping! And lusting to
fornicate
with the widow Trehorn!”

The door opened at just that moment. A silver-haired woman, her gentle brown eyes wide with shock, plump pink cheeks red as cherries, stared at Alaina—aghast. The word
fornicate
seemed to hang in the air.

“Mrs. Dowd!” Ian said cheerfully.

Once again Alaina wanted to sink into the crystal pool of water she had left behind. Apparently she had said the word
fornicate
really loudly. It just wouldn’t go away.

Mrs. Dowd arched a brow to Alaina, but gave no other response to what she had heard. She addressed Ian with pleasure, her voice barely faltering. “Why, Ian, what a surprise, do come in. We’re so sorry to have missed your father’s party—”

“I’m quite glad that you did, and I’ll explain why to you and the reverend, if I may.”

“Of course, of course. Do bring the, er, young lady in.”

Alaina winced. Her reputation had surely just taken another plunge.

But she quickly discovered that Mrs. Dowd was a kindly person, and Reverend Dowd was a gentle man as well, as thin as his wife was plump, with bright, mischievous blue eyes that seemed to delight in the concept of this secret elopement. Ian’s description of what went on was so earnest and close to the truth that Alaina was amazed herself at the deceptive courtesy he displayed in explaining her part in it. She had simply stumbled upon a beautiful pool and been tempted beyond all human resistance, and, well, Ian admitted, his part in it hadn’t been quite so innocent, but now…

“Now,” Reverend Dowd said quite simply, “the matter must be remedied.” His glance at Alaina was quite kind.

“I shall get my brother-in-law down. His eyes are failing, but his hearing is quite good. He’ll do quite well as a witness,” Mrs. Dowd said determinedly. “Harold, you must marry these two young people at once.”

The Reverend Harold Dowd took both Alaina’s hands and offered her a crooked half smile. “Marriage, then, young lady. It’s one thing if a man presses you to it, quite another if it’s the devil’s doing!” He winked, indicating Ian at her side.

“I have pressed her into it, Reverend,” Ian said. “One and the same,” the reverend muttered with humor. “Let me get my book of prayer, then…”

He ambled off. Mrs. Dowd had gone for her brother-in-law. Ian suddenly had Alaina’s chin and was lifting it in a rough hold that wasn’t gentle in the least.

“I’m sorry that Peter O’Neill hurt you and deceived you. I don’t know what went on between you, and I’m doubly sorry if you still find yourself enamored of him. Bear in mind, though, from this day forward, it is over.”

“There was—”

“And madam, if you ever think to betray me with any other man, know that I will render your backside skinless before throttling you.”

Startled by the sudden vehemence of his attack, Alaina found herself both hurt and furious again. Ian McKenzie and his damned sense of duty! He believed that she had slept with Peter O’Neill—and yet he would marry her anyway because it was the right thing to do.

No respectable man would marry her … so Peter had said. But here was Ian McKenzie. In a way, she couldn’t wait to see Peter’s face.

Except that… she couldn’t marry him.

“You are a monster, the very devil, Ian, and I can’t possibly do this! And what of you? All of these threats that you make against me—”

“Ah, but Alaina, I have always known my duty.”

“As I have not? How could you know, how could you know anything about me anymore, how dare you think—”

“We are here because I came upon your stark-naked body in a pool in broad daylight,” he reminded her dryly.

Her cheeks reddened vividly.

“You—”

His whisper was suddenly a violent breath against her ear. “You stand forewarned, Alaina!”

“You
stand forewarned!” she whispered in angry
reply. “You have brought this about; you remember that it is nothing but a charade.”

“A charade? We are here, Alaina, because it is all damnably real!”

“We are here because you—” Alaina began, but she quickly fell silent as Reverend Dowd came forward.

“Ian, Alaina, are we ready? There was a few legal papers which must be filled out and signed first,” Reverend Dowd said, beckoning them over to his cherrywood desk.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it….

Ian was propelling her forward, and she could not resist. She couldn’t marry Ian, yet neither could she bear to think of what her father would suffer if she did not.

Marry him, just marry him!
she told herself. He wasn’t going to give her any other choice. She would have the satisfaction of showing Peter he was a fool, that he had lost her for the most ridiculous of reasons. Ian was going back to the military; she could go on living just as she had, except that she would be Ian McKenzie’s wife.

Respectably married.

“Alaina?” his voice sounded harsh.

He had already filled out the reverend’s papers with impatient carelessness and speed.

Alaina printed in her name, her father’s and mother’s names, and her place of birth. She signed her name.

Ian’s hand was upon her arm.

She found herself back in the parlor, at Ian’s side. Reverend Dowd cheerfully instructed them on just where to stand, taking a position before them, his prayer book in his hands.