Disclaimer: All the characters from the "Magnificent Seven" T.V. series are property of Trilogy Entertainment, The Mirisch Group, MGM Worldwide.
Staring into the mirror some years later, Maude Standish could not picture the person she saw in her reflection as being the one she had once been. In her life, she had played many roles and it was ironic that the one she mourned most was the one she had swore would never play. She wondered how much of life was actually one's own and how much was left to the whim of destiny because she was certain that in choosing to live her life as she willed, she had thrown down a gauntlet before Fate and challenged it do make her do different. It was a dare Fate had no qualms of taking and she had never regretted what it placed in her way, though there were many occasions during the course of her life where she had wished the outcome of things had eventuated differently.
She could have done anything with her life, she could have married well and be one of those fortunately vacuous beauties whose sole lot in life was to be the lady of the manor or in the case of a well bred southern woman, a plantation. Her family was not terribly wealthy but by no means poor either. Her education had been thorough and her childhood not at all spectacular. No one was ever able to understand why she was the way she was. How an aberration such as her could be cultivated in a society where a woman's place was without question and her only duty to serve the man who became her husband. From the very onset of her life, Maude had battled tradition, often at her own peril. Her parents did their best to raise her in the traditions of the southern aristocracy but it became quite clear that she was too spirited to be bound by such restrictive constraints.
She was well educated and her lessons were absorbed with much enthusiasm although her eyes always seemed to glaze over once the instruction was directed at how she should behave to be considered a young lady of good company. She endured the condescension of the tutors who more or less considered her a means of income rather than a student with genuine ability to learn. Their teachings were indifferent, caring little on whether or not she learned, so long as she impressed those who would maintain the income. By the time she was eighteen, she was inundated with eligible suitors from the surrounding plantations. The irony of it all was that despite her sharp intellect, she was an extraordinary beauty that allowed everyone to assume she was incapable of rational thinking. Fighting this unfortunate perception had only serve to anger those around her until one day, she came across a startling revelation.
To play the fool would allow her to learn the things they thought beyond her capabilities. In the two years that followed, she played the persona of the vacuous female in the company of the arrogant gentleman and ladies who sought to label her one of their own. However, in secret she watched, she watched the games they played and learnt that smiles and flowery words were warfare disguised and the sharpest point was not necessarily the ones that drew blood. She learnt how to deceive, to hide what she was, to use weakness to her advantage and to reshape herself to be something entirely different, something that had little use of the life that they expected her to lead.
Maude's talent for the shell game came soon after.
It was easy for a young lady in her station to learn how to con and cheat those who thought her incapable of doing so out of their money. At first, her ruses were small and simple and her looks were almost always the impetus that disarm the mark, ready for the picking. She discovered that she was very good at it and found that for the first time in her life, she was beating everyone at their own game. It was an euphoric feeling. Her nest egg grew and she remained poised, like a trapdoor spider, waiting for her time to come. She could feel it inching towards her, an inner strength and confidence that told she was ready to try this out on her own, without the safety net of her friends and family to squeal about their lost prestige when her cons took them for every thing they were worth. She had principles of course, that she would never cheat anyone who did not in some ways deserve it. When she left home, there was no reason to look back.
Why was there when she enjoyed a freedom she had never known. Leaving little more than a short note, confessing her desire never to return, she traveled through the south, enjoying her new found independence and though the money she saved always dwindled away, she found herself capable of earning more without ever prostituting herself in the process. As the years moved by, she found that she was very good at the art of the con and understood that perhaps this was what she was made for, since she seemed to fit nowhere else. Whenever she was not running a con, she played poker, following the high stakes games wherever they went and often coming away with the winning hand. It was a delightful time to be alive and she enjoyed every moment of it.
At least until the day she was caught.
A mark with whom Maude had swindled a good deal of money out of had done the unthinkable, called attention to his gullibility by approaching the law about her activities. A somewhat powerful man, he had insisted that she be arrested. Doing the only sensible thing a lady of her delicate refinement could do with the threat of incarceration hanging over her, she left town quickly and assumed she had made good her escape when days after her flight, no one had come looking for her. Pleased that she had escaped unscathed, it was not long before she resumed her activities once more, after all it was not wise to rest on one's laurels if a lady was to survive in this world without a man to provide for her. Although in truth, she resumed working because she enjoyed it.
His name was Marshall Peter Reeves and from the first moment Maude had found herself in his power, she realised she was facing trouble in a manner she had never before conceived. It was not just the fact that the man was capable of seeing through every attempt she made to be free of him but rather the way he looked at her. Maude swore, when he smiled at her, her heart began beating inside her chest in a way she had always thought would make her no better than those insipid young women she had tried so hard not to be. With a dimpled smile and the devil's own charm about him, Maude found herself on the defensive because she stood on the edge of unknown territory. Even though their initial days together saw him escorting her to face trial in some backwater town where the crime had been committed, Maude found her attentions focussed less and less on the fact that she might be placed in jail but rather on her captor.
He did not seem to notice her affection and remained indifferent to the fact that he was delivering her to a jail sentence, once they reached their destination. This only infuriated Maude all the more. In all her life, she had yet to meet a man who was not in some way affected by her beauty on some level. The Marshal revealed nothing of the sort and he was unfailing honest and principled. What was worse than the fact that she was afflicted with the malaise that made her a simpering wreck, daydreaming about the way he smiled at her or seemed to aim long stares in her direction, saying nothing about was behind it, was that she could love someone like him. A straight and narrow lawman with principles and high-minded ideals about justice, was this God's idea of a cruel joke?
When they reached their destination, Maude had come to the conclusion that whatever she felt for him was her own private hell for he certainly did not care about her in return. Long stares and little words laced with ambiguity meant nothing because he was going to hand her over to her judge and walk away. Maude did not know what was worse; that he did not care or that she was going to jail. He had left her in the hands of the local sheriff, tipped his hat in her direction after she was placed in the jail cell and waited for a moment until they were left alone before he spoke.
"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and probably more trouble than I deserve." He said simply and then walked out, leaving Maude a bundle of nerves because she had no idea what had just happened. Did he care for her or not? She was so furious at his leaving her in such a state she was almost ready to shoot him.
She did not know how long she waited in that cell while her fate was being decided and it was to her utmost annoyance that she found herself more concerned about how he felt about her rather than the possibility of incarceration. For three days Maude remained in that cell never seeing his face and telling that it was quite all right if she never saw him again because she wanted her life to return to some semblance of the normalcy that it had before she had become his prisoner. Maude was most content to let this happen when all of a sudden the sheriff told her with some disappointment that the charges were dropped and that she was free to go. At first Maude thought that her mark had wanted her freed to carry out some terrible revenge upon her. However, when Mary stepped outside the jailhouse, she found Peter waiting there for her.
"What do you want?" Maude had said stiffly, her nose in the air as she walked past him to the nearest hotel.
"I just wanted to make sure they let you go." Peter responded with that damnable smile on his lips, the one she could never read as he fell into stride with her.
"Why?" Maude retorted. "So that you can catch me if I try to break the law again?"
"If I wanted that, I wouldn't have talked the judge into letting you go." He answered.
Maude paused in her footsteps and looked at him. "You were responsible for my freedom?" Her eyes narrowed in confusion. "Why?"
He took a deep breath, still staring at her as if he knew more than he was telling. "So I can marry you, why else?"
"Marry you?" She exclaimed with incredulity "You seriously think giving me my freedom means that I'd be grateful enough to marry you? You arrested me! You dragged me half way across the state and left me to languish in a cell for the past three days! Aside from that which to you might be a whirlwind courtship, you're a marshal! A do gooder! If you're trying to save my soul, you have made the largest mistake since Eve thought that apple might be a good snack!"
He had taken one step closer to her, until they were staring at each other face to face, that smile still on his lips and the sparkle in his sea colored eyes mesmerizing her. Maude found his closeness uncomfortable and wanted to step back but everything about him had power over her and she could not understand it. In all her life, no man would ever effect her in quite the same way. She could smell the light musk of his cologne and study the strength of his jaw. However, what captured her attention most was the intensity of the emotion in his eyes. It was raw and powerful, like the man himself and though there was still some resistance left in her because she was after all Maude Standish, she knew that she was almost as lost as he.
"Marry me anyway." He repeated himself, confident that he was right about how he felt about her and what he was certain she felt about him.
"Do you know what I am?" She asked, swallowing thickly as he slid his arm around her waist and it felt so right there that Maude did not move away or complain that it was inappropriate for him to be so forward with her in the middle of the street.
"Yeah," he nodded. "Trouble."
"And you still want to marry me?" She asked, wondering if he was insane or delusional. Perhaps both.
"That's about the size of it." He nodded and did not allow her to say anything further when he sealed the discussion with a long, passionate kiss.
The moment Maude felt his lips against her, she melted into his arms. Everything about him swept her off her feet with unconditional love and desire. In all her life, she would never experience a kiss with as much jarring intensity as the one she had first shared with Peter Reeves. Her lips parted for him and as he explored her mouth, his arms tightened around her body, until she was trembling from his touch. The power of him was beyond belief and for a woman determined to control every aspect of her life, admitting she loved him was the most wonderful thing she had ever done. By the time he pulled away to let her catch her breath, Maude thought she might faint.
"You're crazy you know that?" She managed to say.
"Probably." He agreed with a smile.
"Just as long as we have that clear." Maude responded with dignity. "We have to tell the preacher that one of us is sane."
They were married that day itself and for the next three years of her life, Maude played a role she never thought she could even though she was never conventional about being his wife. Peter seemed to enjoy that part of their life together and accepted her eccentricities with good humor because all she was, is exactly what he fell in love with. By the time their son Ezra had been born, Maude could not imagine how she had been so wild in her youth.
Until the day Peter was taken away from her and everything changed.