Trilby

“I suppose so.” She went to get the dishes for the pie from the china cabinet, praying silently that she wouldn’t drop any of them. “Do you care for iced tea, Mr. Vance?” And if I only had some hemlock…

“Yes, thank you.”

She opened the small icebox and with an ice pick chipped off several pieces of ice to go in the tall plain glasses. She covered the small block of ice with its cloth again and closed the door. “Ice is wonderful in this heat. I wish I had a houseful of it.”

He didn’t reply. She took the ceramic jug of tea she’d made for dinner and poured some of the sweetened amber liquid into the glasses. She’d fixed three, because surely Teddy would be back soon. She’d skin him if he wasn’t! Her nerves were strung like barbed wire.

She put a perfect slice of pie on a saucer and placed it before him at the table with one of the old silver forks her grandmother had given them before they’d left Baton Rouge. She placed a linen napkin with it and put the glass of tea on it. The ice shook and made a noise like tiny bells against the glass.

His lean hand shot out as she withdrew hers and caught her small wrist in a hot, strong grasp. She caught her breath audibly and stared at him with wide, wary eyes.

He scowled faintly at her reaction. His gaze went to her hand as he turned it in his and rubbed the soft palm gently with his big callused thumb. “Red and worn, but a lady’s hand, just the same. Why did you come out here with your family, Trilby?”

The unfamiliar sound of her name on his lips, in that deep, soft tone, made her knees weak. She stared at his work-toughened hand, at the darkness of his skin against the paleness of her fingers. His touch excited her.

“I had nowhere else to go. Besides, Mama needed me. She isn’t that well.”

“A fragile woman, your mother. A real Southern lady. Just like you,” he added contemptuously.

She lifted her eyes to his. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know?” he replied coldly, and the dark eyes that met hers were full of distaste. “You won’t find much polite society out West, my girl. It’s a hard life, and we’re hard people. When you live on the fringe of the desert, you get tough or you get dead. A little bit of fluff like you won’t last long. If the political situation here gets much worse, you’ll wish you’d never left Louisiana.”

“I’m hardly a bit of fluff,” she said angrily, thinking that his late wife fit that description far more than she did, although she was too polite to say it. “Why do you dislike me so?”

He grew more somber as he looked at her. He wanted to throw his contempt in her face, but he didn’t speak. A minute later, Teddy came in the back door with half a pail of milk, and Thornton Vance slowly released Trilby’s hand. She rubbed it instinctively, thinking that she’d surely have a bruise on the back of it by morning. She had delicate, thin skin, and his grip hadn’t been gentle.

“Here’s the milk. Did you cut me a slice of that pie, Trilby?”

“Yes, Teddy. Sit down and I’ll get it.”

Teddy pretended not to notice Trilby’s unease, putting it down to the presence of Mr. Vance….

“There, wasn’t that good?” Teddy asked the visitor when they’d finished the delicious pie. Thorn had wolfed his down with delight.

“Not bad,” Thorn agreed. His dark eyes narrowed on Trilby’s pale face. “I think your sister finds me hard going, Ted.”

“Not at all,” Trilby said, denying it. “One learns to take headaches in one’s stride.” She got up abruptly and gathered the dishes, taking them quickly to the sink with the iron pump attached. She pumped it to get water into a pan and then poured water into the kettle and set it on the wood stove to boil.

“The stove sure does make it uncomfortable in the summer, doesn’t it, Mr. Vance?” Teddy asked.

Thorn had smothered a grin at Trilby’s last riposte. “You get used to things when you have to, Ted,” Thorn said.

Trilby felt a twinge of sympathy for him. He’d lost his wife, and he had probably cared about her a great deal. He couldn’t help being rough and uncivilized. He hadn’t had the advantages of an Eastern man.

“That was good pie,” Thorn said directly, and sounded surprised.

“Thank you,” she said. “Grandmother taught me how to cook when I was just a little girl.”

“You’re not a little girl now, are you?” Vance asked curtly.

“That’s right,” Teddy agreed, not realizing that the question was more mockery than query. “Trilby’s old. She’s twenty-four.”

Trilby could have gone right through the floor. “Ted!”

Thorn stared at her for a long moment. “I thought you were much younger.”

She flushed. “How you do go on, Mr. Vance,” she said stiffly. “Speaking of going on…”

Vance smiled at her. It changed his face, made it less formidable, charming as his black eyes sparkled. “Yes?” he prodded.

“How old are you, Mr. Vance?” Teddy interrupted.

“I’m thirty-two,” he told the boy. “I suppose that puts me in the class with your grandparents?”

Teddy laughed. “Right into the rocking chair.”

Vance laughed, too. He got up from the table and pulled his pocket watch out of the slit above the pocket of his jeans. He opened it and grimaced. “I’ve got an Eastern visitor arriving on the train this afternoon. I must go.”

“Come again,” Teddy invited.

“I will, when your father’s home.” He glanced at Trilby speculatively. “I’m having a party Friday evening, a get-together for my Eastern visitor. He was a relation of my wife’s, and he’s somewhat famous in academic circles. He’s an anthropologist. I’d like you all to come.”

“Me, too?” Teddy asked excitedly.

Vance nodded. “There’ll be other youngsters around. And Curt will be there, with his wife,” he added, with a pointed glance at Trilby.

Trilby didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t attended an evening party since they’d been in Arizona, although they’d been invited to several. Her mother didn’t like social gatherings. She might agree to this one, because it wouldn’t do to offend someone as wealthy and powerful as Thornton Vance, even if he did look and act like some sort of desperado.

“I’ll mention it to Mama and Papa,” she told him.

“You do that.” He took his hat in hand and walked with easy strides to the front door with Trilby and Teddy behind him.

It was tilted at the usual rakish angle when he swung lazily into the saddle. “Thanks for the pie,” he told Trilby.

She tilted her chin at just the right angle and smiled at him coldly. “Oh, it was no trouble at all. I’m sorry I couldn’t offer you some cream with it.”

“Had you lapped it up already?” he tormented.

She glared at him. “No. I expect you curdled it.”

He chuckled with reluctant pleasure. He tipped his hat, wheeled the horse gently, and eased him into a nice trot. Trilby and Teddy watched him until he was out of sight.

“He likes you,” he teased her.

She lifted an eyebrow. “I’m not at all the kind of woman he’d be interested in.”

“Why not?”