Whispers in the Wind
Prologue
The large ranch house of Mr. Zachariah Whittingstall was filled with at least thirty of his friends and business associates, their wives and their daughters; some of whom had traveled from Kansas and Texas. His own daughter seventeen-year old Emmeline, had played her part and agreed to be dressed as a well bred lady should be, in a pretty dress of cornflower blue. A simply uncomfortable affair, with a corset tied so tightly that she could hardly breathe. These parties were held every two to three months at the ranch house and at first, she had been excited about them and loved being dressed up like a society lady in fine dresses of silk and lace imported from New York, but she soon grew tiresome of seeing the same faces and not being able to do the things that she normally did, like tending and riding the horses and the other little things that her father let her do away from the prying eyes of the townspeople of Angel Creek.
Although Emmeline hated her father's soirees, she had made the usual pleasantries with the gentlemen who all seemed to leer at her lithe body and ample bosom. There was no doubt that given the right situation and a fair amount of whisky that one or more of the gentlemen them would turn absolutely beastly and try to have his way with her. As the thought always hung in the forefront of her mind, she remained perfectly darling to their fragile looking wives and she made merry with the young girls, who quite clearly talked behind her back in hushed whispers simply because her father owned half of the town and had a liking to drinking too much whisky and a reputation for being too ruthless in business. Also, the younger gentlemen who were often dragged to these parties seemed to prefer filling her dance card than theirs.
Emmeline had always suspected the purpose of these parties were to either find someone who was willing to take her off her father's hands – seventeen was quite old to unmarried around these parts and she often wondered if she would be considered an old maid - and also for the visiting wives to try marrying off their daughters to her father. Money and status was all these people seemed to care about and feelings like love be damned. The thought of being married to any one of these men made her heart sink, she would even go as far as saying that it disgusted her. Emmeline wanted to marry for love, wanted to marry a man who worshiped her as much she would worship him; and while she knew that it was common for woman to marry a man and for love to grow, she didn't want to be one of the women who that didn't happen to.
The party had begun to grow tiresome to her and Emmeline had made her escape a short while ago, without making any excuses. As luck would have it, her good manners had led her towards the lounge door and her opportunity came when one of the older females had fainted from the heat. She assumed that the woman was what her father would have called a Yankee, having never been acclimatised to the heat that lingered all year around in the Mid-Southern states. Gathering the skirts of her dress and kicking her shoes into a corner where they would be easy to retrieve on her return, she slipped through the swing door, through the kitchen and out into the warm evening air.
A gentle breeze tickled her bare legs as she moved away from the manor house and into the ranch's cultivated gardens. As the sounds of laughter, which had resumed shortly after her vacating the house, and the jaunty music from the small band of fiddlers and the player piano became distant, Emmeline found herself meandering through the hedges towards a small pond in the very center of the garden, where she was assaulted with the aroma of a hundred flowers; freesia, sweet pea, roses and lavender that all mingled into a sweet smelling perfume that she wished she could bottle and carry with her at all times. The smell reminded her so very much of her mother, Grace, who was the one who tended the gardens and planted all of the flowers.
They had been her pride and joy and together Emmeline and her mother had spent many a day basking outside in the sunshine; she would read books and do her further learning as she listened to her mother hum a cheerful tune. Oh how she missed those days. They seemed such a long time ago, although in reality they had only ended two years ago when her mother succumbed to consumption and died in the spring, before she had the chance to start tending the flower beds in preparation for the summer. She took a seat on the very edge of the walled pond, for it was always here that she made her escape whenever she felt the need to just be alone, away from all the hubbub.
Her father never came here; it pained him to be in the place that reminded him so much of her mother. Although his recent behaviour of lifting the skirts of the saloon girls, throwing these week long parties and drinking himself into such a stupor had earned a him a poor reputation, Emmeline knew that her father had loved her mother very much and still did so. After her death, in a fit of drunken ire, he tried to destroy the gardens with fire, he was however unsuccessful in his attempt as it had rained shortly before he stumbled off the porch with a kerosene lamp and the fire never took. She had been thankful for that, seeing it as a sign from God, otherwise she would have been unable to forgive him for taking away the last thing that tied her to her beloved mother. It was of course no secret that she came here, her father chose to overlook it and if she was needed, then he sent one of the housemaids, usually her favourite, a freed slave by the name of Betsy, to find her. The summer after her mother's death, she began tending the gardens herself as best as she could, but in the end, Emile; one of the workers on her father's ranch took over.
Emmeline stared at her reflection in the clear cool water of the pond, watching it ripple with the now cooling evening breeze and wondered if she would ever find the happiness that her mother had found with her father. There's was a lucky marriage, one that united two strangers, who immediately fell in love with each other and found long lasting happiness. Until death do us part. Lost in her own thoughts Emmeline frowned when she realised that the sun was starting to set, turning the sky into a magically multi-coloured cornucopia of pinks, purples and oranges. A small sigh escaped her lips as she stood up, knowing that now was the time to return to the house and the unruly shenanigans that were bound to be in full swing. She would have to endure for just a few more hours until she could go to her room, lock the door and try to sleep. Smoothing the creases out of her dress, she took one final look around her and started walking slowly back to the house with an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.
It wasn't until she was half way back through the gardens that she realised that she was not alone. Emmeline half suspected that one of the gentlemen from the party and stumbled outside and lost his way, so she didn't particularly take much heed and carried on. It was only when she past a row of tall hedges that she grew worried. The air suddenly seemed to grow thicker and stiller at the same time and the noise from the cicadas and the birds who were saying goodbye to the sun ceased and the only sounds that could be heard where the strains of music from the house and the sound of her heartbeat, which pounded in her chest. Without warning, she was yanked to the right and through the gap in the hedgerow into a secluded area that she hadn't known had existed.
Her eyes widened with fright as a black-gloved hand suddenly clamped over her mouth and she was pulled backwards into the hardened body of a man. Emmeline struggled, but he brought his other arm over her stomach and around her and pinned her petite body to his. Her constant squirming brought a bubble of laughter to the man's chest, which reverberated through her own body and sent tingles all the way down to her toes. Despite the distinctive smells around her, she could now smell him too. He smelt of the wind, of the sun and of the wild. There was a hint of something spicy there too, cologne maybe, and definitely whisky. Suddenly she grew afraid as the cold realisation of what could happen hit her.
'Keep squirmin' like that darlin' an' I might start to like it,' his voice was gruff but honey coated and in a strange way, gentle. 'I'm not gonna hurt ya, I just need you to pass on a message for me'.
Emmeline refused to comply, although her fear did strangely subside at his promise, but still she wriggled trying to break free from his embrace. He didn't try to restrain her any more, just let her carry on trying to break free from his embrace, his mouth nestled in the curls on her shoulder, so close to her ear that she thought she could hear him chuckling to himself and then she knew why and she stopped suddenly, shocked. Some thing had changed and she could feel it against her back, hot and rigid with a heat that penetrated through her thin dress and burned against her skin.
'I told ya I'd start to like it,' he breathed against her neck, a hint of a laugh in his drawl. 'Now, I wan' ya to nod your head if ya understand me.'
Emmeline nodded, quite vigorously, knowing that doing what he told her would be the best thing to do in the current situation.
'Can ya tell your daddy that he's got some unfinished business with Black and to come to the place that he knows at high noon tomorra?'
Yes, she told him with a nod, she would tell her daddy and then she was sure her daddy would kill him for man-handling his daughter like this.
'Good, now I'm gonna let ya go,' the man said gruffly.
With that, he released his grip from around her waist and pushed her forward back towards the gap she was dragged through. His other hand still clamped around her mouth like a vice as he walked behind her. She was half through the gap when his free hand grabbed her arm and yanked her back sharply spun her in one swift move to face him.
Her hazel-coloured eyes landed immediately on his face which though half covered with a black kerchief looked tan and sun-weathered. His eyes were a startling colour of blue that looked as though they were the oceans themselves with laughter lines fanned out from the corners. His hair was pulled back and tied with a piece of leather and he wore a black Stetson hat, pulled low over his face, this was meant to hide the top half of his face, she was sure, but in the setting sunlight and the angle at which she was looking up at him meant that it only served to keep the light at bay from the top of his head. She quickly took in the rest of his appearance. He was dressed completely in black. A black shirt with loose ties hugged his muscular chest; the cotton fabric strained against the bulkiness of his arms, was tucked in to a snug pair of black pants which clung to his lean legs the in turn were tucked into a pair of black low-heeled and silver spurred leather boots that stopped at his calves.
If he hadn't have kidnapped her, Emmeline would have been sure to have found his look alluring. She had heard of men dressed like this, gun slingers she believed they were called. There were often pictures of them on wanted posters that she'd seen around the town, looking mean and dangerous.
Before she had chance to make a run for it back through the bushes and back up to the house, the black-clad man pulled her close to him, her breasts squashing up against his chest as he pinned her hands around her back with his other arm before she had time to struggle free. With a deft movement that was quicker than Emmeline could have ever believed, he had removed his hand from her mouth, pulled down the kerchief and had crushed his mouth to her own.
This was very wrong, she knew it was and so she struggled against him once more trying to break the kiss. It was her body that betrayed her first, as it surrendered to his embrace, and he released his grip on her arms. They hung there limply for a few seconds as her lips betrayed her and they moved in time with his. Her body melted into his as the kiss deepened and her arms moved from her sides so that she could grab on to him, if only to keep herself from falling down.
She had never had a real kiss in all of her seventeen years, a chaste kiss happened once with a boy when she was twelve, but that was wet and horrid and not something that she ever had the desire to want to try again. This kiss was something else. It made her wanton with desire and made her knees go weak. This was the kiss of the great lovers, Romeo and Juliet, of Tristan and Isolde. It caused an unknown feeling to bubble inside of her, it was raw, unbridled and it made her head spin. She didn't want to end, but she knew it would have to eventually.
After what seemed an eternity, the man in black broke the kiss and while her eyes were still closed, pulled the kerchief back over his face. When she opened her eyes seconds later, he had vanished and she was left in the clearing, alone, with a heaving bosom and the inability to walk. She was sure that somewhere in the distance she could hear that now familiar chuckle of the man in black. Her lips tingled fiercely and the soft skin around her mouth was burning slightly from the stubbly facial hair that he had hidden from her initial view.
In a daze, she slipped back through the gap in the hedgerow and for the second time that night, she smoothed down the creases of the cornflower blue dress, not noticing the small tears in the sleeves, patted her curls back into place and quickly hurried back through the gardens towards the manor house, hoping to disguise her flushed appearance as one of over exertion.
The sky was growing ever darker by the time Emmeline slipped back inside to the party and Betsy gave her a look that told her that she had been missed. She frowned and hurried into the receiving room to find her father, pausing briefly to touch her fingers to her still tingling lips...