He smiled at her, then pulled her to sit on the log beside her.
“What happens now with you two?” Jamie asked, trying to lighten the mood. He asked as though the answer were a foregone conclusion. Women may hate to talk about justice, but it was his experience that they loved to talk of marriage.
’Ring smiled. “Oh, the usual thing with lovers, I guess. You and I are going to see what we can do with the kidnappers, and when I return Maddie and I will be married at the fort.” He looked at her. “I guess you’ll make an honest man out of me, won’t you? You weren’t taking advantage of me in the last few days, were you?”
Maddie was too upset by his pronouncement that he was going off to wage a minor war to give him her full attention. She looked at her coffee cup and nodded. It wasn’t the marriage proposal she’d hoped for, but after what they’d done the past few days, she had expected him to marry her. If nothing else, he was an honorable man, she thought with some anger, and blinked away more tears.
Toby looked from one Montgomery to the other, then at Maddie. “Where you two gonna live?” he asked softly.
“In Paris,” Laurel said with wonder in her voice. “Bailey has told me all about Paris.”
Maddie opened her mouth to speak. An opera singer lived all over the world. But before she could say a word, ’Ring answered for her.
“We’ll live in Warbrooke, of course.” He winked at Laurel. “We’ll visit Paris and maybe you can go with us, but I have a business to run, so we’ll have to live in Warbrooke.” He turned to Maddie. “You’ll love it there. It’s on the sea and it’s beautiful.”
Maddie was quiet for a moment. “Where do I sing?”
He reached for her hand, squeezed it, then released it. “I’ll build you the most magnificent theater you’ve ever seen.”
Her voice was very soft. “With plush seats?”
“Whatever you want. If you want silk brocade, I’ll buy it for you.”
“And a gilt ceiling?”
“Of course. I’ll hire some craftsmen from Italy to carve cherubs on the ceiling. Sweetheart, it’ll be the most beautiful theater in America.” He looked at Jamie. “Hell, we’ll make it the most beautiful theater in the world.”
“And who will hear me?” Maddie asked.
He smiled at her. “Anybody you want. I don’t think you have yet to realize what kind of family you’re marrying into. You want the President there? We’ll have him come up.” He smiled broader. “We could have your cousin, the king of Lanconia, visit.”
Maddie didn’t smile. Her eyes were very serious. “Will you pay them to applaud me? Will you buy flowers for them to toss at my feet? Will you buy me diamonds after each of my performances? Or will you just toss me a tidbit as you would a trained dog?”
’Ring’s face lost its laughter. “Wait just a minute. You’re taking this the wrong way. I don’t think of you as a trained dog. You’re the woman I love and I want to make you happy.”
“By buying me?”
’Ring looked at Toby and Jamie, and a wide-eyed Laurel who was watching them. “Maybe we ought to talk about this in private.”
“Why? So you can touch me and make me forget the good sense that I was born with? No, I think we should talk about this here and now and in front of witnesses. I am not going to spend the rest of my life in some isolated community where I sing only for you and your relatives. Oh, yes, and for whoever you pay to hear me sing.”
“That is not what I meant at all. You weren’t listening to me.”
She set her coffee cup down and stood. “No, you are the one who wasn’t listening to me. Either you weren’t listening or you don’t actually understand about my voice. I am one of the best singers in the world. I am one of the best singers who has ever lived.”
’Ring forgot about the people around them. “Sometimes your vanity surpasses itself.”
She turned to him, her face intense. “No, you don’t understand. Not really understand. I don’t think that I’m the most beautiful woman who ever lived. I’m really only average-looking. I’m not the most intelligent, and, as you point out rather frequently, I’m not the most well educated. I’m not one of those women who inspires love from all she meets. True, men have wanted me, usually for my voice, but I have never—at least not until I met you—had anyone love me who wasn’t related to me or wasn’t a friend of my father’s, not really love me. And I have never had a woman friend in my life.”
“What does this have to do with us…and where you sing?”
“This has everything to do with my voice. My voice is what I do have. I don’t have brains or beauty or a particularly good character, but I do have the best voice of anyone alive today, one of the best voices that has ever been given to a human being. Don’t you see? I have to use what I have. You have an obligation to go back to Maine and help your father run that company of yours because you’re good at business. I have an obligation to share my voice.”
He gave her a patronizing smile. “There’s a great deal of difference between a ‘company’ the size of Warbrooke Shipping and performing in operas. I don’t think you realize how big Warbrooke Shipping is. We are the transporters of the world.”
She nearly sneered at him. “Do you print that on your stationery?”
He looked away. The motto wasn’t on stationery, but it was on several plaques about the office.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. He must understand. “I’m sure that you help a lot of people. But, truthfully, if your family didn’t own the ships that people sail in, then someone else would. I, on the other hand, with my voice, am irreplaceable. No one can take my place. No one on earth can do what I do as well as I do it.”
“You’re wrong if you think just anyone could run a business the size of Warbrooke Shipping. My family has owned the business for over a hundred years. We’re trained to run it from the time we’re children. Each son—Where are you going?”
“You’re not making any attempt to listen to me. You have your mind made up that what you do is important and what I do isn’t important, and you’re not going to listen to what I have to say. I see no reason to discuss this further.”
He was on his feet instantly and caught her arm. “You can’t just walk away. Don’t you realize that this is our life you’re talking about? If you don’t live with me in Warbrooke, what’s going to happen to us?”
Her voice and face were very calm when she spoke. “What are we going to do if I don’t do what you want?” She jerked her arm out of his grasp.
“Look at you,” she said. “I sensed that you had money the moment I first met you. You walk with that air about you, of someone who has always been able to buy whatever he wants. This time you decided you wanted to buy an opera singer. You wanted to buy her a pretty cage in the form of a theater full of plush and gilt and famous people. You wanted to buy her diamonds and silk gowns. And in return, whenever you wanted to hear your little opera singer, all you had to do was look at her and say, ‘Sing, little bird,’ and she would do so. After all, you had bought and paid for her, hadn’t you? She was yours to command as you wanted, just as all those many men who work for you are yours to command.”
“You don’t understand.”
“It’s you who doesn’t understand.”
“What am I supposed to do if you want to keep on performing in public?” He made it sound as though she were a strip dancer. “Am I to follow you around from city to city? Hold your cloak? Maybe you’ll let me see to the stage sets. Maybe I should have cards printed that give my name as Mr. LaReina. Do I get to be a duke?”
She looked at him and there was sadness in her eyes. “I have never lied to you about what was important to me. I have always told you that my voice is the most important thing in my life.”
“I’m not asking you to stop singing,” he yelled at her. “You can sing from morning to night for all I care. I want you to sing.” He stopped shouting. “Maddie, I can’t do what you want. I know you think Warbr
ooke Shipping is just a business, but it’s more than that. It’s…it’s tradition. I don’t know how to explain it. Tradition is an important part of my family and my family is important to me. The Montgomerys are as important to me as your singing is to you.”
She understood very well what he was saying. It was the end. Even though she knew that, she knew that she could not give up what meant life to her to become his pet performer. “I can’t do it,” she whispered. “I would die. I would shrivel into nothing and die if I had to give up my life in order to receive your love.”
“I’m not asking—Oh, hell! Jamie, you talk to her. See if you can make her see reason.”
Jamie didn’t say a word and ’Ring turned to look at his brother. There was disapproval in Jamie’s eyes.
“Don’t tell me you agree with her?” ’Ring half yelled at his brother.
Jamie’s mouth tightened. “It’s not as though you were an only child. You have six brothers and, granted, none of us is quite as good as you are at running Warbrooke Shipping, but we manage. In fact, we manage quite well without you.”
“I saw the last quarterly reports. I saw how well all six of you have managed without me.”
At that Jamie stood, his handsome face distorted with rage, and for a moment it looked as though the two men would come to blows, but Jamie was the first to turn away. He looked at Maddie. “You’re better off without him. He’s not worthy of you.” At that Jamie turned and walked away.
Maddie started to follow him, but ’Ring caught her arm.
“You can’t leave now. We have to settle this.”
She was trying to hold back tears. “It is settled.” She looked up at him and the tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “Madame Branchini was right. She said I could be a singer or I could be like other women.”
“You are like other women,” he said softly. “You need and want love just like every other woman, and, Maddie, I’m offering you love. Please don’t turn me down. Please don’t think that I’m making you give up your singing.”
“But you are, and you don’t even see that you are.” She jerked her arm from his grasp. “Don’t you realize that I never asked to be given this gift? No one came to me sitting on a pink cloud with a little book in hand and said, ‘Maddie, we’re planning your life. Do you want to be a singer or do you want to have a normal life with a husband and children and friends?’ No one asked me what I wanted.”
“What would you have chosen?” he asked softly.
The tears began then. “I don’t know. I don’t know. What is is. I can’t change what I am.”
“Neither can I.”
She couldn’t speak anymore, for her throat had closed up with tears. She put her hand to her mouth and ran from him.
’Ring stood staring after her. There had to be some way to make her see reason, he thought. There had to be some way to explain to her—
“Ow!” he said, and grabbed his shin, then looked at Laurel in astonishment. She had just kicked him. “What was that for?”
“You made my sister cry and you made Jamie mad. I hate you.” With that she turned and ran after her sister.
’Ring turned back to the fire and Toby, who was still sitting there. With a hand that shook, ’Ring poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down.
“Don’t look like you’re none too popular,” Toby said.
“She’ll get over it,” ’Ring answered. “By morning she’ll see the light and—”
“And what?” Toby asked.
’Ring didn’t say a word but looked into his coffee cup.
“It don’t matter none,” Toby said. “Women are a dime a dozen. They’re always around. Always underfoot. Why, I bet that within a week you can get yourself another woman. Colonel Harrison’s daughter likes you a lot. I bet she’d be glad to go back to Warbrooke with you. She’d like to have you buy her diamonds and silk dresses. In fact, sometimes I think that one of the things she likes best about you is Warbrooke Shipping. In fact, I sometimes think that’s what most women like about you boys. It would bother me some if I was contemplatin’ marriage. You know, if I was as rich as you tradition-lovin’ Montgomerys and a woman wanted to marry me ’cause I was so rich. Don’t seem to bother you, though. In fact, with you, if a woman don’t want your money, you try to give it to her anyways. That’s good, lets you know where you stand with her.”
’Ring threw the coffee on the ground and stood up. “Toby, you talk too much and you don’t understand anything.” He walked away from the campfire.
“True,” Toby called after him. “I ain’t as smart as you.” He looked back at the fire and snorted. “There’s rocks smarter ’n that boy.”
Chapter 15
Maddie pushed Edith away and saddled her own horse. When the animal blew out its belly, Maddie punched it in the stomach and pulled the cinch tight. It was cold in the early morning light, but she didn’t feel the cold. She hadn’t slept any during the night, but lay awake and looked at the ceiling of the tent and listened to Laurel sleeping and the sounds of the night.
’Ring hadn’t come to her and she hadn’t expected him to. All during the night she had cursed herself, asking herself why she’d ever thought that she could have a life like other people’s.
She leaned her head against the horse for a moment and thought of her mother. Her father had received all the credit for his travels and his journals, but those in the family knew how much he owed to her mother. If it hadn’t been for the quiet calm of Amy Littleton, Jefferson Worth would have died anonymous, just as hundreds of mountain men before him had.
Maddie had a great need to see her mother, to talk to her, to ask her advice, just to be held in her strong arms. She closed her eyes and remembered what her mother had told her on the night she’d first sung for her father, the night that her mother had said that her father was to go east and get Maddie a teacher.
Afterward Amy Worth had tucked her daughter into bed. “What is going to happen to me?” Maddie had whispered to her mother.
Amy took a deep breath. “For some reason God has blessed you—or cursed you, depending on how you look at it—with a talent. He has singled you out from other people. He’s made you different. And from now on nothing in your life is ever going to be the same. I know you’re young, but right now you have to decide whether you want to honor this gift or hide it.”
“Oh, honor it,” Maddie had said easily.
Amy did not return the smile. Instead, she grabbed her daughter’s shoulders and pulled her up so they were face-to-face. “Listen to me, Maddie, and listen hard. If you decide to honor this gift, you will never, never have a life like other people. There will be wonderful highs, but there will be agony such as other people never know. You have to take all of it, you understand me?”
Maddie had no idea what her mother was talking about. To her, singing was only pleasure and nothing else. It was adulation and attention from adults. It was hugs and kisses and praise.
Her mother was searching her daughter’s face. “I’ll allow your father to get a proper teacher for you only if you want it.”
“I do. I like to sing.”
Amy gave her daughter a little shake. “No, not like it. You have to love it. Maddie, a talent like yours is an all-or-nothing thing, and you have to want to sing more than anything else on earth.”
Maddie understood a bit then. Already singing was everything to her. It replaced schoolwork and games, pretty clothes and playmates, and everything else that others considered good in life. She’d rather sing than do anything else. “I want to sing,” she said softly.
Amy had seen the fire in her daughter’s young eyes, and she’d let out her breath, then clasped Maddie to her. “May God protect you,” she whispered.
Now Maddie at last knew what her mother had meant. Until now she’d found no conflict with what she wanted and what she had. Oh, there were times when she was tired and she wanted to be alone yet there was a group of people clamoring for her to sing. Sometimes she
yearned after the solitude of her father’s mountains, and sometimes she was sick of being wanted, not for who she was but for what she could give people, but all that was more an annoyance than anything else. And she’d always known that if she wanted badly enough to leave Paris or Venice or wherever, she could. But now she seemed to have no more choices left in her life.
“Maddie.”
She lifted her head but she didn’t turn to look at ’Ring.
“Please don’t leave like this,” he said. “Let’s spend the day here and talk.”
She turned to look at him. “Will you travel with me as I sing?”
“I have to run the family business. I’ve stayed away long enough, and as soon as my tour in the army is finished, I have to return.”
“Then we can be married and live apart. I will do my best to get to America to see you at least every other year.”
His expression answered her.
She looked back at her horse. “Why did you do this to me?” she asked softly. “Why did you make me fall in love with you?”
He reached out for her, but she moved away. “Maddie, these things happen. I never meant—”
She turned to look at him. “Yes, you did. You wanted me and you did everything in your power to get me. You were like someone who saw something lovely in a shop window and you saved for it, planned how to purchase it.”
“That’s absurd. I fell in love with you. It happens every day. If you’d just—”
“When did you fall in love with me? Tell me the exact moment.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about with this purchasing talk, but he couldn’t help but smile when he remembered the moment he realized that he loved her. “It was after the miners kidnapped you, on the day that I was bringing you back from where they’d taken you. We had been talking and it was so easy between us. I thought you were so different from other women, and then you looked up at me and I knew that I loved you.”
She looked back at the horse. “That was some time ago. After that what did you do?”