Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
ONE - San Diego, California, March 1853
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN - Sacramento, 1853
EIGHT - San Francisco, 1853
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
PRAISE FOR NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR CATHERINE COULTER
“Her plots are like rich desserts—sinfully delicious and
hard to pass up.”
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Catherine Coulter romances readers.”
—Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph
“Coulter is excellent at portraying the romantic tension
between her heroes and heroines, and she manages to
write explicitly but beautifully about sex as well as love.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Delightful . . . witty . . . engaging.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Coulter’s characters quickly come alive and
draw the reader into the story. . . . You can hardly
wait to get back and see what’s going on.”
—The Sunday Oklahoman
“Charm, wit, and intrigue. . . . Sure to keep
readers turning the pages.”
—Naples Daily News
“Tantalizing.”
—The Knoxville News-Sentinel
SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand,
London WC2R 0RL, England
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Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Putnam Inc. Previously published in Onyx
and Topaz editions.
First Signet Printing, March 1999
First Signet Printing (Updated Edition), March 2002
Copyright © Catherine Coulter, 1986, 2002
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
eISBN : 978-1-440-65751-1
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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PROLOGUE
Wakehurst Plantation Near Natchez, Mississippi, 1844
“Drew just left to visit the Radcliffes, with my encouragement, of course. He took his paints. He’ll be gone for hours. I’ve sent the slaves away. We’re alone.”
Brent stared at his beautiful stepmother, her soft words dinning in his ears. She was only four years older than his proud eighteen. She was so desirable, her breasts high and full, her waist so narrow he was certain he could span her with his hands, and all that titian hair, loose now, flowing down her back. He watched her tongue glide over her lower lip. She was so unlike the girls he’d loved from the precocious age of fourteen. He’d pictured making love to her, pictured himself thrusting inside her, so deep.
He gulped and took a step back. “My father is your husband,” he said. He felt his blood pumping wildly, knew that he was straining against his tight breeches. He hurt.
“Yes,” said Laurel. “But he is old, Brent. I am so lonely and he can’t love me, not the way you could, not the way I need.” She shrugged and the silk peignoir slipped a bit.
Brent forced his eyes away from her breasts, and looked frantically toward the door of her bedroom. He shouldn’t have come in here. God, what was he going to do?
“We wouldn’t hurt anyone, Brent. Just give each other some pleasure, that’s all I ask. You are so young, just as I am. I’ve wanted you since I came here. You’re a beautiful man, Brent, so desirable. I watched you kissing Marissa Radcliffe. Did you know that? I want you to kiss me too.”
His body was trembling as he watched her walk toward him, her magnolia scent filling his nostrils.
His hands fisted at his sides. He knew he should walk to the bedroom door, open it, escape her, escape his own frantic lust. Her hand touched his shoulder. He stiffened.
She stood on her tiptoes, looking at his mouth. “I can teach you, Brent, show you how to love a woman. I can give you such pleasure. We won’t hurt anyone. No one, I swear it.”
She touched her mouth to his, but his arms remained locked against his sides.
“My father,” he gasped into her mouth, but her tongue touched his, and he was lost. He’d scarcely ever tried to control his surges of bone-deep lust and found it impossible to do so now. Her breasts flattened against his chest; he felt her belly and her thighs move against him. “My father,” he repeated again.
Her small hand found him, began to caress him, and he moaned, knowing that he would spill his seed if she didn’t stop. “Laurel,” he whispered, “don’t. I can’t control myself.”
“Come,” she said. She led him to her bed. Her eyes never left his face as she slipped out of the silk peignoir and gown. She let him look his fill, then began to unfasten his clothes. God, he was beautiful, she thought, lust swirling wildly, deep inside her. So tall and well-formed, so strong. So young. When he was naked, he stood quietly before her, closing his eyes as her hands stroked over him. He gritted his teeth when she caressed him with her fingers and then her incredibly soft mouth, wrenching a moan from deep in his throat. She knew, he realized vaguely, that he would spill his seed if she didn’t stop, but still he wanted to yell when she left him. He felt her hands around his back, felt her pull him with her to the bed. He fell on top of her with a wild cry. The shame and the guilt were there, tangling in his mind. “My father,” he whispered yet again, the agony of his young body making his voice shake. He pulled away onto his side. But his eyes went to the triangle of dark red hair and he could see her delicate woman’s flesh. “No, I cannot,” he said, but she straddled him, her hands splayed against his chest.
“Yes, Brent,” she said against his mouth. “He will never know. H
e would not care.” Her tongue was in his mouth as he bucked upward against her. His hands tangled in her hair, and he knew nothing else mattered, nothing else existed.
Laurel drew up, and guided him into her. As she drew him deeper, she knew that this time she would not find her pleasure. But it didn’t matter. He was so young and vigorous, so splendidly male. There was time enough. All afternoon. All the tomorrows. He would give her all the pleasure she wanted. She felt him stiffen, saw the cords in his neck as he reached his climax. His brilliant blue eyes, deep and mysterious as the stormy sea, narrowed as if in pain. “Yes, Brent,” she whispered, and rode him fiercely until he climaxed.
She kissed him, pressed herself on him. To her intense delight, he stayed hard inside her. He was far from sated, far from being exhausted. In the hour that followed, she taught him to pleasure her. The warmth of his mouth, his tongue, made her wild.
“So good,” she said, pressing his head closer to her. “Gently, my love, gently.”
Brent felt utter power and triumph when her body exploded with the pleasure he gave her. He reared up over her and thrust between her thighs. He pumped into her, lost to everything but the exquisite sensations building in him.
“My God.”
It took several moments for his father’s voice to penetrate his mind. All sensations ceased as if they’d never existed. He jerked out of her, rolled off the tangled bedcovers, and rose shakily to his feet beside the bed. He stared at his father.
“Jesus, my own son. You filthy little bastard!” His father’s face was red with fury. Brent realized his father’s eyes had fallen, that he was staring at his sex, wet with himself and Laurel.
“Slut, whore,” Avery Hammond screamed at his wife. “God, I’ll see you in hell.” He rushed out of his wife’s bedroom, and Brent could hear his galloping steps down the long corridor.
Laurel grabbed the cover. “He wasn’t supposed to come back,” she said blankly. “Not until tomorrow.”
“He is here,” Brent said as he quickly pulled on his scattered clothes.
He was jerking on his boots when his father reappeared in the doorway, a whip in his hand. “I’m going to flay the flesh off your back, you slut.”
Brent quickly moved in front of his father. “Father, stop. Please, it wasn’t her fault, sir.” Brent drew himself up tall and proud. “I seduced her, Father. I forced her. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t want me.”
Avery Hammond stopped in his tracks, quaking from rage, as his son’s words penetrated his mind. His son, his beautiful son, his flesh and blood, his pride. Oh God. Vaguely, as if from a great distance, he heard his wife sobbing. Brent, his son. Wild to a fault, but young. Wild as he himself had been wild when he was his son’s age. “You dishonorable bastard.” He felt the pounding of blood in his ears. He raised the whip and brought it down, slicing open his son’s face.
Brent felt the searing pain, but he didn’t move. He felt warm blood trickle down his cheek and off his chin, dripping to the carpet at his feet. He found himself wondering if the blood would wash out of his mother’s precious Turkish carpet.
“I never want to see your face again,” Avery Hammond said as he lowered the whip. His hand was shaking. God, he’d scarred his son. Brent’s eyes never wavered from his face, and Avery felt something die deep inside him. Then once again he saw his son’s powerful body thrusting between his wife’s legs. “You are not worthy to be my heir. I disown you. May you live with this disgrace for the rest of your miserable life. Be gone before dark or I’ll kill you.”
Brent couldn’t bring himself to move.
“Go, damn you.”
Brent walked slowly past his father and out of the bedroom. He heard Laurel’s sobs, his father’s heavy breathing.
He didn’t feel the pain in his torn cheek. He felt nothing but emptiness.
ONE
San Diego, California, March 1853
Lunch started well enough. Alice DeWitt ladled out the stew, passing it to Byrony, who in turn served her brother and father. Plump, good-natured Maria had been gone for three months now. They could no longer afford to pay her miserable wage.
There was silence, for which Byrony was thankful. Anything other than silence was usually unpleasant. She glanced at her father, Madison DeWitt, and thought she saw the signs. He was crumbling a soft tortilla between his fingers, and his fleshy jowls were beginning to quiver.
The attack came swiftly.
“Lazy bitch,” he roared at his wife. “A man needs his food and you serve me up this garbage?”
He threw a thick earthen bowl filled with tasty beef stew across the dining room to smash against the whitewashed wall. Pieces of beef and vegetables fell on top of the mahogany sideboard. It was her mother’s prized piece of furniture.
“Do you think me a pig to give me such swill?”
It wasn’t a question, but Alice DeWitt said in her soft, wounded voice, “It’s filled with fine beef chunks, Madison. I thought you’d like it.”
“Silence. Since when do you pretend to think, you stupid cow?”
Madison DeWitt heaved back his chair and began to pull off his thick leather belt. His heavy face was flushed with rage, the pulse in his throat was pounding above the loosely knotted kerchief. Byrony couldn’t stop herself. She slipped out of her chair and moved to the other side of the table to stand beside her mother.
“Leave her alone, Father,” she said, her voice shaking even though she was fighting with all her might for calm. “Your temper has nothing to do with the stew, and you know it. You’re angry because Don Pedrorena sold his cattle for a better price.”
“Sit down and shut your trap,” Charlie said, eyeing his father’s belt with mild interest. He’d never felt the belt since he was thirteen years old. He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. “Don Pedrorena is a damned liar and thief, all the Californios are scum. Someday—”
Byrony turned on her brother. “They are not, and you know it. You’re just jealous, both you and Father. If either of you had an ounce of—”
She never finished. Madison DeWitt slashed the belt downward across his daughter’s back. She lurched back, gasping at the pain. Alice DeWitt made a soft, keening noise, her hands fluttering helplessly. She made no move to interfere; it would do no good. She felt the pain with her daughter, her sweet daughter whom she’d tried all her life to protect.
“You’re as stupid as your mother,” Madison growled, and flayed the belt across her shoulders. “Both of you, worthless sluts. God save me from the stupidity of women.”
“Not God,” Byrony screamed at him, “the Devil.”
Byrony felt the cheap cotton of her gown rip as her father struck another blow. She fell to her knees, her arms going up to protect her head and face.
“Father,” Charlie said, calmly sipping at his wine, “don’t scar her. Didn’t you tell me you might get a good price for her? A husband wouldn’t appreciate welts or scars, you know.”
Madison DeWitt struck another blow before his son’s words penetrated his brain. He drew back, breathing hard. “A damned husband wouldn’t see her back until it was too late,” he said, but he didn’t strike her again. “Get up, you little slut,” he said. He turned his dark eyes to his cowering wife. “Get me something to eat, woman, and no more slop.” He threaded the belt through the loops of his trousers and sat down again, his rage spent, to drink another glass of whiskey with his son.
Byrony slowly inched up and sat back on her heels. She was wounded, in spirit as well as body, and her eyes blurred with hated tears. Why don’t I just keep my mouth shut? But she knew she couldn’t. She had to protect her mother. Her mother, after all, had protected her until just six months ago when Byrony had returned to San Diego at the death of her Aunt Ida in Boston. Aunt Ida, her mother’s older sister, who’d always answered the girl’s questions with “Your father’s a difficult man, my dear. Best you stay here. It’s what your mama wants, you know.”
Difficult? Dear God,
the man was mad, his spurts of violence coming more often now that there was so little money. He’d beaten her three times since she’d returned. Byrony bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out, both from pain and her helpless anger. It would only bring her father’s attention back to her. As silently as she could, she rose and slipped out of the dining room. She heard her father laugh at something Charlie said.
Alice DeWitt entered her daughter’s small bedroom nearly an hour later. Without a word, she dipped a soft cloth into warm water and began to sponge the welts.
“I hate him,” Byrony said between gritted teeth. “And Charlie, he’s become as much of an animal as your husband.”
“Your father has had many disappointments,” Alice said. It was a never-ending litany, as if his own failures excused his savage attacks.
“His disappointments are of his own making. Why don’t you leave him? Mother, we can go together, leave San Diego. We can go back to Boston. Aunt Ida had so many friends—”
“You shouldn’t have interfered,” Alice said. “I’ve told you not to, many times.” She must get married, Alice thought. Soon, so she’ll be safe.
The wind blew hot and dry across the top of the rise, making the endless sea of chaparral bend and dip. Several buzzards swooped down from the rise to the flatlands below, seeking prey, their flight slow and steady.
Byrony sat in the shade of a lone pine tree, her long legs spread out in front of her, her felt hat pushed back off her forehead. Her mare, Thorny, was tethered some distance away where she could forage at the scraggly bits of wild grass. It was a desolate place, a private place where no one came, except for Byrony. If the day were clear, like today, she could see the ocean in the distance and some of the buildings in San Diego. She shifted her weight and felt a painful pulling across her back. She found herself wondering yet again if all men were like her father and Charlie. Cruel, vicious, unable to accept their own mistakes, their own failures. Unlike her mother, she couldn’t excuse her father. He’d lost several head of cattle, all through his own carelessness, leaving them to seek out water from a poisoned well. And those that lived, he’d tried to sell, for little money. And Charlie, carousing in the saloons in San Diego, gambling with the same lack of luck that characterized her father.