Gabriella sat trembling at the vanity table, pulling an ivory inlay brush through her raven black hair. Tears clung to her sooty lashes surrounding her ice-blue eyes. Her thoughts fluttered inside her mind like frightened bats.
How could her father have forced her into marriage with his most hated enemy, a man she had been taught since childhood to fear? Yet, to save his precious ranch, her darling
Brand had been sent away and she had been hustled in front of a priest to wed the dreaded Thornton.
She jumped as a soft click sounded. She turned, eyes wide, as the door to her boudoir slowly opened, and…
…revealed Stone Barkmulch, his tall figure outlined by the soft light from the hall.
He stood in the doorway, firm and wordless, and though his face was sillhouetted (and thus, invisible), Gabriella knew it bore that dark, brooding look that always graced his hard, chiseled features.
Gabriella was surprised by the sudden entrance of a man she had not seen in years, and for a moment, she could not speak. Her breasts heaved within her soft nightdress, as she caught her breath in panting surprise. Slowly, she set down the brush, and stood from the vanity.
“I always knew you’d come back for me, Stone,” she heaved, her upper lip glistening with sweat’s lovely embrace. “Take me, my sweet, chiseled Stone!”
“But it is not Stone,” he rumbled, his surging manhood roughly indenting her suppleness. “I am his twin brother, Rock, gone lo these last five years. Have you forgotten your passion for me so soon?”
Gabriella’s moist lips parted in a soft “O” as she…
caught a glimpse in her mirror out of the corner of her eye. She pulled back and gasped.
“Thortnon!” she cried. “How did you get in here unannounced? I shall certainly have words with my maid!”
Thornton flung a lock of auburn hair out of his grey eyes and scowled. “More to the point, my fair wife, how did this scoundrel get into our boudoir? Faithless wench, and our marriage is not even three hours old!”
Rock stepped back, reached inside his coat pocket, and pulled out…
a folded piece of paper, bent at the edges that looked as if he’d carried it around for years.
“Do you know what this is, Thornton?” growled Rock, with a fierce look in his eyes. “It’s a birth certificate.”
Rock glanced at Gabriella. She felt the heat in her cheeks rise from the passion in that simple glance.
“Why would I care about something like that, you cur? I’ve found you in my wife’s bedroom. You’d best explain yourself quickly before I kill you.”
Rock smiled, and the coldness in his eyes when he looked at Thornton sent shivers down the spine. He opened his mouth to explain…
“It’s the deed to the Ranch,” said Rock. “I discovered a rich vein of Gold in California. I am now wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. I have bought back the farm and, now I give it to my brother and to Gabrielle as a wedding gift. I know that we can never again have what we had before, my sweet, and I would never hurt my brother by trying to win you back. I will now give you back the deed and I shall go back to my lonely mansion in san francisco and try to forget. I shall never love another.”
“Not so fast,” said another voice from outside the door…a woman’s voice.
“You can’t marry Gabriella,” said Rock. “It would be quite illegal!”
“What are you talking about,” sneered Thornton. “You uncouth bastard?”
“It seems that twenty years ago, your father, the millionaire, Thorne Branch, had an illicit affair with a young maid named Ginny…yes that Ginny, Virginia Caldwell, Gabriella’s mother!” Thorne gave her money to hush her up and quickly arranged a marriage to his hired hand, Cliff Bridges, the man Gabriella has always believed was her father. You can’t marry Gabriella, Thornton because she’s your sister!"
“And just how do you know all of this?” snarled Thornton, 'Who told you?"
“I id” said a voice from outside the door…a woman’s voice.
“Eleanora! I thought you had gone to bed!” Gabriella was surprised to see her maid about at this late hour.
“I had, milady,” said Eleanora, dropping a graceful curtsey, “but when I heard the voices, I came up here to ensure that you were not in danger from brigands or vandals.”
Thornton bristled at this, dashing a rogue russet lock from his eyes. “I will do the protecting around here. Go back to bed, Eleanora. You have no business here.”
Eleanora’s rosebud lips tightened into a look of firm resistance. “Begging your pardon, but you did ask how Rock knew of your kinship with my mistress. If I may explain…”
" I have had a tempestuous relationship with Thornton for the last six months."
“Eleanora!” bit out Thornton.
Rock stared daggers at the pair, " You little slut. You told me you were a virgin!"
Rising slowly from her seat, Gabriella held her ivory handled hairbrush in her hand tightly, she began pacing the aubusson carpet in her mariboo trimmed pink slippers, the silk night rail she wore billowed out, showing her pink leather merrywidow. " I saw someone sneaking out of your room the other night…actually…it was a couple of people…" Gabriella’s brown eyed gazed snapped upward in accusation, " You good for nothing ho, you’ve been sleeping with…with…I can’t say it…it is to vile."
“You blackmailed my father to marry your own sister! What kind of foul wretchedness is this!” Tears fell down her cheeks. “I was willing to go humbly to your bed, to be a good wife, and you did this to me! You, sirrah, are no gentleman!”
With that, Gabriella ripped apart the drapes and flung open the windows. Before Rock could move, she was climbing down the Confederate jasmine that twined up the second floor of the manse. Gabriella dropped down and ran across the lawn fleet as a gazelle, until…
the kitten heel of her delicate pink slipper caught in a gopher hole on the lawn. Tumbling across the grass, with her coal black ringlets flung in her face, Gabriella slowly raised herself to encounter a forbidding black silhouette framed in the fragile moonlight.
“F-f-father!”, she exclaimed, while delicately spitting out blades of grass from between her full and pouty pink lips.
“Gabriella, I have something to tell you about about Eleanor. You had best sit down for this.”
“I’m lying upon the lawn, dear Father. I must leave the dread Thornton behind. Please, what is so pressing?”, begged Gabriella, her bosom straining to fill her noble lungs with air.
“Dearest daughter, I had hoped to keep this from you, but I find I can no longer. Your maidservant Eleanora is not who you think she is.”
Gabriella gazed anxiously up at her father, as she tugged a bit of clover from between her pearly incisors. “I can’t think what you mean, father, dear. Is not she the daughter of my mother’s dearest friend?”
“Indeed she is.”
“Was she not orphaned when kind Mrs. Ripsquawk got her head crushed in the mill?”
“Indeed she was.”
“Did she not come to live and work in my home, having nowhere else to go?”
“Indeed she did.”
“Then what could this great mystery possibly be?” Gabriella was most distraut, and salty tears fell upon her activity-flushed cheeks like raindrops upon a spring rose.
“You are right that good, dead Mrs. Ripsquawk was her mother, but, my dear, you do not know who Eleanora’s father is.”
“Is? Don’t you mean, ‘was’? I thought he was an Army lieutenant, killed in a fall from his horse, before dear Eleanora was even one year old!”
“I’m afraid that is not so.” Gabriella’s father’s eyes darkened with the bittersweet rememberance of a wrong that had felt so right.
“I am Eleanora’s father. Your maidservant is your sister.” …
Gabriella began to weep hysterically, as she stared at her father, realizing in that moment that both of her so-called parents were in fact incurable sluts.
“Oh papa!” she sobbed, her delicate voice quavering with keenly felt emotion. “How could you betray mama like that? How could you keep such secrets?”
Her father turned from her, the tears on his cheek gleaming in the soft moonlight. A moment later, Stone appeared, racing across the yard to take Gabriella into his arms.
“Dearest, are you injured?” he asked, and she blushed at the gentle yet manly tone of concern in his voice.
“I’m fine,” she sobbed, her breast heaving against the strain of her nightdress, letting her body go limp in his powerful embrace.
“At least, physically, that is,” she added, glaring at her father with a steely coldness magnified by her ice-blue eyes. “There have been all too many lies revealed this evening,” she continued, her father looking away in shame, “and I will be glad to be rid of it, safe in the arms of a good, honest, man.” She looked up into his gray eyes with a passion that had been dormant far too long. “Safe in the arms of you, Rock.”
He stood up in outrage and dropped her on the cold lawn, causing a gentle splash as her breasts bounced in the evening dew. "Rock? How dare you?!? Even after five years you won’t let his memory die! You still confuse me with my twin brother, even after he…
Gabriella stared up at Stone, feeling her heart race beneath her heaving bosom.
“What are you doing here? Why did you never come back for me?”
Stone hauled her up by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Your father is a scoundrel, almost equal to my brother. Together the two of them had me shanghaid. I’ve had to work my way back from China on freighters.”
Gabriella gasped and would have fallen again in a swoon if Stone’s firm hands hadn’t been holding her upright. Instead, she sagged against him, feeling his body, stronger and firmer than ever after years of hard labor.
“But…why did you never send word…a letter…anything to keep my hopes alive, Stone?”
She gasped as Stone cried out and fell over. Standing over him in the gloom was his twin brother Rock. He glared at her father, daring him to make a move.
“It is time,” Rock said. “Gabriella, you must choose. Only one of us can take you away from here. Choose.”
Gabriella was torn. Rock, Stone, and her own darling Brand…where was he, anyway? A whipporwill sang its plaintive cry as Rock’s foot impatiently tapped the lawn. In the distance, she saw Thornton and Eleanora emerge from the manse and head toward her. Her father seemed to shake off his shock, and would soon tackle Rock.
Gabriella stood up, brushing off the dollar weeds from her pegnoir, and opened her lovely lips and spoke the words that would change the rest of her life…
“I cannot have any of you. I neglected to tell you that I am in love with Cora, a delightful lady I met on my Continental tour. We spent many days and nights together, and she understands me as no man can. We had plans to run away together, but I felt that I must come home and try to explain to my father. We all know how that turned out though.”
"As a child, I believed myself to be in love with Brand. After the fall from his horse, he’s never been the same. I still love him, but as a friend. "
At that moment, the cellar doors popped open and a redheaded woman popped out…
“You foolish bitch!” cried the redhead. “You never loved Brand! Never loved him like I did. I, your half-sister through your mother and Brand’s father. He was never injured by that fall. He lied to escape your cloying, full-bosomed embrace!”
Meanwhile, a ship plied the seas, two thousand miles distant and growing ever more. On it, Brand looked up at the night sky and spoke quietly to himself.
He said, “Dude. Glad I got away from that Gabriella. That chick was psycho to begin with, but if she ever found out about her family… Wow. What an ugly scene that would be! I can only imagine…”