“About Russ Donnelly they were lies.”
“Then… a man I knew called to say he thought he could help me clear Dad’s name.”
Rate’s expression altered, as I knew it would when he heard this part of my stupidities.
“And he needed some money to carry on the investigations?” he asked. I nodded. “A predictable confidence approach.”
“I’m really not that stupid,” I protested, irritated. “I knew the man. And he did know everything there was to know about racetracks and the people connected with them. It was also entirely likely that he could get people to talk who’d clam up in front of the police.”
“Who?”
“Caps Galvano.” Rafe closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, shaking his head slowly, a kind of tired wisdom in his eyes when he looked at me again.
“You must have been hard up to trust that slimy excuse for a human.”
“He said he knew!”
“All right, all right. So you paid him, and it wasn’t enough, right? And he was back for more. So what did you do?”
I didn’t want to go on, but there was an expression on Rafe’s face that told me he’d find out if he had to sit there all day. He was worse than the police, this one.
“Galvano thought Louis Marchmount might help me.”
Rafe’s hand came down on his knee with a resounding crack.
“That figures. Galvano’s been running Lou’s errands for him for years. So it was Marchmount who raped you.” And Rafe began to swear with coarser words and phrases than I’d heard from the foulest-mouthed hostlers. Coarse but inventive, displaying such a knowledge of Louis Marchmount’s erotic habits that I was appalled. How could Rafe Clery possibly know such things? Then he cut off the invective and looked at me pityingly, shaking his head slowly.
“You poor silly chinch of a kid. What a shitty thing to happen. And that bastard knew just how to put the squeeze on you. If you’d been one of his usual blonde broads, he couldn’t have worked it. You’d’ve told him off and got the money anyhow. The nice girls, the good girls, they get screwed every time. Oh, Jesus!” And he threw up his hands and rolled his eyes in apology at his choice of words.
But the idiom was so appropriate, and I was so tired, that I began to giggle, and then kind of folded up again. He must think me such a despicable, stupid…
“No, dear heart, I don’t. From where I stand, you were foolish, yes. But mighty inexperienced and innocent, and in a damned rough bind. How do I know what I’d’ve done if I’d been you?”
He stroked my head. Then his fingers rubbed my jaw gently, where I wasn’t burned. It had the effect of a benediction. His weight shifted, and I felt his fingers on my back, lightly applying the salve. He began to talk in that deep wonderful voice of his, so comforting, so soothing.
“You aren’t the first girl to be subjected to that old routine. ‘Your virtue for my money, fair beauty.’ You won’t be the last.”
“I can’t ever get married,” I heard myself murmuring wistfully. “I’m not a virgin.”
He chuckled, tipped up my chin, daubing my right cheek with salve.
“How many wives d’you think are nowadays,” he asked with a soft laughing tenderness.
“None of mine were.” “But you divorced them.”
“Not because they weren’t virgins. Lie flat.” When I had, he slipped the shoulder strap down to anoint my chest. “You shouldn’t’ve said we were engaged just to get a room next to me.”
He paused, giving me a very level look. “That wasn’t exactly why. I’m well known in this town and in the business. I thought”-and his unsaid comment chided me for his lack of knowledge-”that some sour character was just giving you a hard time. If he knew I was interested in you, he’d bug oft. A pretty girl with two fine horses, a championship rider, but with no obvious sponsor, is fair game. Now…”
“Because Mr. Clery is interested, I’m safe?” “Don’t get snotty. How’n’ell was I to know murder was involved?” He lowered the other strap and dabbed at a cluster of blisters. “I suppose the police cleared Marchmount?”
“He was in Caliente when… it happened.” “And Galvano? Though I don’t fashion that little worm as a murderer.”
“He was in Caliente, too.”
“Hrrrmmmm. Over you go.” He deftly flipped me to my stomach, and I buried my face wearily into the pillow. It was so nice to be taken care of. And I did feel safe with this crazy little man.
“Come to think of it, Marchmount’s colors haven’t been winning much lately. Was he bearing down on your father at all?”
“Not that I knew of. He’ always told Dad he had implicit confidence in him.”
“He’d have to say that. Your father’s reputation was high. Lift up. This gown’s a mess.” He was working on my legs now. “But to use you like that. Christ. Move your left leg a little. I can get most the burns this way. No. Over you go again.”
I turned, carefully and languidly, but the stiff pains were easing off now that the salve was taking effect. He flipped the sheet over me, and it settled down with a cool sigh around my body.
“God, you look like a freaked-out case of measles. Lie still a minute.”
Enjoying the respite from the myriad discomforts of the flesh, I heard him rustling around.
“Let’s see, it’s your right side that’s got the bad burn, isn’t it?”
I nodded dreamily, unconcerned even when I felt the sheet lift again, with a rush of cool air over my body. When I felt his bare foot touch mine, it was too late.
He had me pinned against the length of his warm strong body and had placed his hands just so, avoiding the worst of the burns. My head was caught in the crook of his right arm, and I couldn’t move.
“This won’t be rape, Nialla, because you’ll want me as much as I want you. There won’t be any nonsense about helping me. You ought to realize that right now.”
He was pressed against my hip, firm and hard.
“Please, Rafe. Please don’t.” I was scared.
“Oh, no, Nialla,” he said with gentle firmness, his eyes a brilliant blue. “You’ve built that incident all out of proportion. Happened over a year ago, didn’t it? Yet when I touched you at the pool, you went rigid. It’s ruining you for any normal relationship with men. And you’re too damned fine a girl to be crippled like that. So I’m going to make love to you. And you’re not going to resist me, because, dear heart, you can’t.”
He threw one leg across my thighs. Inched his body slightly to pin my left arm down. He already had my right hand captured at the elbow. Bending his head, he began to kiss my breast, teasing it with his tongue, stroking it with his free hand. Then his fingers lightly drifted down to my belly, to the soft part of my inner thighs. Between kisses, he kept talking to me, ignoring my pleas, my protests, my curses. He switched his attentions to my other breast, gently at first, then suddenly rough. And the pressure on my nipple hurt; it hurt in a different way, too, in my belly, and deep, deep inside me.
“I like a strong body. You’re not soft, Nialla, or gaudy. You’re neat and smooth,” he told me. I’d stopped ranting and was whimpering softly because I couldn’t resist him. And I hated him, more than I’d hated Marchmount, because Rafe knew exactly what he was doing, and that sick old man hadn’t been able to help himself. Rafe didn’t need to blackmail women into sleeping with him…
His lips were traveling around my body now, teasing, nibbling, arousing me, robbing me of my hatred with sensations that left me no room for anything but the touch of his fingers, his lips. I began to shiver, wondering where he would caress me next. Closer those prowling fingers came to the ultimate goal, and suddenly his hand gripped me there. Released me. And began to trace a delicate random pattern, until I was almost wild.