Free The Wildest Heart by Rosemary Rogers

have read my journals, you will understand why I make them. But I would make another request of you, my daughter, and that is that you read my journals in sequence…
    I was to get in touch with a man named Elmer Bragg when I arrived in Boston. “An ex-Pinkerton man,” my father called him. “A frontier lawyer with the soul of a scholar—or perhaps a prophet. Elmer chooses his clients since he had retired, but he is one of my closest friends, and if I am unable to meet you, it is my wish that you will contact him.”
    The letter was signed “Your loving Father, Guy Dangerfield.”
    I thought about my mother, whom I had known these past two years, and for whom I could feel nothing but a vague kind of dislike. I had hated her at times, but I was beyond that violent emotion now. She was a poor, wily woman, the product of her environment and upbringing. I was more my father’s daughter than I was hers, and she, oddly enough, had realized it first.
    I had passed the time for looking back! The thought came to me with a kind of violence, bringing me to my feet, and to the mirror again, where I looked at my reflection with a feeling of wonderment, remembering myself when I had first come here. It was a different Rowena Dangerfield who would be traveling to America—not a girl, but a woman.
    â€œIt is better this way,” my mother said, as she rode opposite me in the carriage. It was our first real conversation since we had spoken of my new life a week ago, and now we were on our way to the docks. “You’ll get on in America, I’m sure,” she went on, her eyes flickering over me. “Guy should have been allowed to have you, of course. I see that now. But at the time your grandfather was insistent, and I had no choice in the matter. I was forced to go abroad for a while. The scandal was really terrible. I wasn’t prepared for any of it—then.”
    â€œI’m sure Sir Edgar went with you,” I said idly, and saw her eyes narrow.
    â€œYes, he did! But then, it is not something you would understand. You have never felt deeply about anything, or anyone, have you? Oh, I see you raise your eyebrows. I know what you think about me. But you have never loved. I wonder if you are capable of it! I might have—I might have felt something for you, even if it was only pity, if I hadn’t recognized how hard you are, under that indifferent surface!”
    â€œWhat is the point of saying this to me now?”
    She leaned forward, and her mouth, usually soft and pouting, was hard. “It has to be said! I know you never loved Edgar. You never felt anything for him, did you? And perhaps it was for that very reason that he became so—besotted—obsessed! You saw him merely as a man you had maneuvered into an awkward position, and then you used him, did you not? But I love him. Yes, look at me any way you want to. You may think me a silly, stupid woman, but at least I’m capable of feeling! He had his mistresses when we first met, and he had them afterwards, but he married me. It didn’t matter until you came. Guy’s daughter—Guy’s revenge!”
    I said coldly, “How unfortunate that you had me at all! And how awkward of my grandfather to die so soon.”
    â€œOh, yes,” my mother said a trifle wildly. It seemed as if she was suddenly determined to have her say. “Yes,” she added, in a lower voice. “You would not understand, but I was only seventeen. What did I know of love or marriage at the time? It was all arranged. I was to be married to Guy Dangerfield, who was so much older than I was, a man I had met only twice before. It was what I had been brought up for, after all. To make an advantageous marriage. No one thought to consult my feelings in the matter! I was married in order to produce more Dangerfields. Thank God that after I had you I was allowed some respite!”
    A tiny shiver of anger shook me as