A Husband Returned: Men of Wicked Sorrow, Book One

by Wynne Roman

  “Nathan,” she whispered again, stumbling to a stop a little more than an arm’s length from man and horse. She cut off the words with a choked cry. “You’re alive? They told us you were dead!”

  The change that came over him upon hearing the words was complete and immediate. The tension of moments earlier suddenly seemed simple when compared to the clear shock that surrounded him now. His shoulders went back, his broad chest heaved for breath, and though she couldn’t see his eyes, she felt his gaze pierce her with a weighted intensity.

  “What?” His voice was low and harsh, the word sounding more like a curse than a simple question.

  She blinked and swallowed, wanting to do or say something that would change the situation somehow. Make it easier for them both, but there was nothing. Only truth, and that seemed as important as anything else she could offer.

  She licked her lips. “A year ago.” Shaking her head, she searched for the details. “Longer than that. After Spotsylvania. We got word that you had been killed in action.” She turned enough to gesture behind her. “They said you were buried there, in Virginia, your grave unmarked. Your mother insisted we have this monument erected here.”

  He dismounted and stood next to her before she quite realized that he’d even begun to move. An instant later, he stalked through the open gate without another glance in her direction. As he neared Gabriel’s position, the Segundo took a respectful step backward, leaving the gravestone to stand stark and almost mocking before him.

  Nathan Austin Fairchild. Born: November 13, 1837. Died: May 12, 1864.

  What could he possibly feel, seeing this almost contemptuous proof of his life—and supposed death?

  Mariah reentered the cemetery slowly, came within a few steps of her husband, but instinct warned her not to go any closer. Nathan had never taken comfort from her or her touch, and she couldn’t imagine that was about to change now.

  “What the bloody goddamn devil,” he muttered, and then nothing more.

  What could she say? She could think of nothing and so didn’t respond at all. Nathan didn’t seem to notice, just stared silently. It wasn’t until he glanced aside, perhaps meaning to turn back toward Mariah, that he detected the other new marker that stood so close to his.

  Jordan Fairchild. Born: 1812. Died: 1864.

  Nathan’s body jerked stiff and awkwardly straight, but he said nothing. Rather, he took several steps, enough to bring him directly in front of his father’s tombstone, and then he stared wordlessly. The moments grew longer and longer until a bark of sound erupted from his throat. Was it distress or laughter?

  “So, Jordan kicked it.” There was no emotion in Nathan’s voice.

  “He died two months before . . . ah—before we thought we’d lost you, too.”

  “He die or somebody kill him?”

  It took little effort to match Nathan’s impassive tone. Jordan had had that effect on all who knew him. “He died,” Mariah admitted. “Apoplexy, the doctor called it. His heart.”

  Nathan nodded, but did not speak until he turned his attention on Gabriel. “Who are you?”

  “Gabriel Bonham.” He stepped forward, one hand outstretched. “Segundo. I came with Tristan.”

  “My brother?” Nathan turned his head to peer at her. “He’s here?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “He came home about six months ago.”

  “He’s all right?”

  “Yes.” She nodded again, because nerves urged her to move and that seemed the only thing permissible. “I don’t know anything about his time away—” that was what Carolyn always called it “—but if he was ever wounded, it wasn’t serious.”

  Nathan stared at her a moment longer, transferred his gaze to Gabriel, and she didn’t miss their wordless exchange. She’d seen it before, always between men who had served. It was as though they recognized a kindred soul and shared an understanding that escaped those who were untried.

  Gabriel took a breath; she could see the rise of his chest. He didn’t look at her. “I’m sure you two would like some time alone. Why don’t I take care of your horse and give you some privacy?”

  Mariah wanted to say something. But what? There were no words she could give Gabriel when she understood so little herself, nor was there anything he could say to her. Not now. Any conversation between them would be wholly and completely inappropriate.

  She was a married woman, not the widow she believed herself to be, and—

  Oh, God! What had she done?

  Nathan watched as the one-eyed man led Clancy away. His emotions were a mass of confusion roiling through his head and heart. What the hell was happening?

  He forced himself to turn back to Mariah, hating that he was unable to deny her youthful beauty, even now. Her dark hair was pulled back into some sort of fancy bun at the back of her head. The hairstyle emphasized her high cheekbones and the long, smooth column of her neck. Her eyes were clouded by some emotion he wouldn’t even try to decipher, but they were still that same strange violet color that had haunted him more than once. Eyes that frequented his dreams when he hadn’t understood why.

  It made sense now. His wife. His widow.

  Her dress was black, covering her from neck to wrist and ankle, and plain in a severe, austere way. A garment meant to acknowledge death and observe mourning, and Nathan hated it. It drained all the color from her face, or was it his arrival that had left her so sallow and sickly looking?

  It didn’t matter. The only thing he could concede at the moment was the one thing he had never been able to deny: Mariah Carpenter Fairchild was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  He didn’t like knowing that or having to admit it, even to himself. He’d denied it when he married her, his heart still full of love for Susannah, and so he’d refused to see beauty elsewhere. No other face, no physical body, no kind intentions or generosity could sway him from his hatred. That hadn’t stopped him from seeking out his wife on a nightly basis. He’d never made love to her, but he had bedded her like a common harlot, and he hadn’t cared.

  Now, in this moment, he was aware of a physical response that crawled over him like a lying, insidious fog.

  Susannah’s death was no longer a deterrent. Prison camp and a lost cause no longer kept him from Mariah. Nathan had even surrendered a half-discovered life up north to return to the Sangre Real in order to reunite with his once-devoted wife. His body recognized her in a way it never knew another woman. Not Susannah, not any one of the whores who followed the army to ply their trade, and not even . . . her.

  Wren.

  The name slammed through him with all the force of a minnie ball. Wren took him in, gave him a future, showed him how to continue when all seemed lost. She also sent him on his way when—

  Stop!

  He listened to the voice of reason that roared inside his mind. It was right. He couldn’t retreat. Think of a past that was better left forgotten or things that might have been. It was unworthy of Nathan himself, of Wren, and of Mariah, if he were willing to admit the truth.

  “Nathan?”

  Her voice cut through the silence, and he was relieved for the excuse to blink away the unhealthy thoughts. These moments, here and now, were all that could matter.

  He glanced at her, standing there so stiff and awkward. It seemed like an effort to hold herself steady, as though something far less sturdy lurked beneath it all. Like some part of her would run if she had the choice.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “I have so many questions.”

  As did he, but this wasn’t the time or place. “Later,” he announced. “When everyone is together. I don’t want to have to do it more than once.”

  “I—” She took a breath. Nodded. “All right.”

  He stared at her a moment longer and then leveled her a heavy gaze. “Who is he?”

  She flinched. “Who?”

  He sharpened his glare. She knew who he was talking about. “Gabriel Bonham.”

  “He’s the
Segundo. He told you so.”

  “And?”

  She blinked and then swallowed. “And he’s a friend.”

  “Women, wives, don’t have male friends.”

  She held her reply for a heartbeat. Another. “Widows do.”

  4

  Widows do.

  Nathan stared at Mariah as though inspecting her very prim and proper form. More than that, he studied the conflicted expression on her always lovely face.

  Conflicted? He blinked and reconsidered the word. What about his sudden return could cause her such apparent inner turmoil? Shouldn’t she be happy? Elated, even?

  He closed his eyes on a grunt, instantly recognizing the game he was trying to play with himself. He’d learned the trick eons ago and at the hands of a master. Jordan Fairchild had always known just how to rearrange the facts and his responses to them. Now, Nathan tried to do the same. In other words, bait himself with deliberate ignorance so he could follow another line of thinking altogether.

  Mariah didn’t deserve such childishness.

  Of course she’d find your return upsetting, chastised a furious voice. She’d thought him dead these past eighteen months. If he considered that alone, he couldn’t deny that she had been holding herself together with amazing composure.

  Nathan wouldn’t be so lucky when he faced his mother. Of that, he could be certain. No one in his experience had a weaker strength of will than Carolyn Fairchild.

  Still, Mariah’s observation rankled. Widows do?

  “And now that you find you aren’t a widow after all?” he asked as he took a step, another, a third until he stood so close that he could smell the light scent of lavender that he had come to associate with her. He’d forgotten that until now, when memories tried to steal over him, but he forced them away. It wasn’t the time for such wasted emotion.

  “What do you mean?” she asked breathlessly.

  Almost without thinking, he reached out. Extending one finger, he dragged the back of it over her cheek. “Are you disappointed?”

  “I—what?”

  Her voice sounded sharply scandalized, and he knew he had shocked her. Good. He held his smile and simply continued to stroke her cheek.

  “I thought you might be disappointed to find yourself no longer a widow but a proper wife again.” He dropped his hand.

  Though she blinked furiously, Mariah held his gaze in a show of strength that surprised him. She’d always been somewhat shy, demure, even submissive, and all but invisible if she could manage it. She seemed different somehow.

  Four years, he reminded himself. He hadn’t seen her in all that time, so why wouldn’t she have changed? It couldn’t have been easy alone on the ranch, both before and after Jordan’s death. Then, once Nathan had been reported dead, who could guess what things had been like?

  He narrowed his eyes, thinking of all the ways in which they both had likely glimpsed their own hell.

  Mariah swallowed, touched her lips with her tongue, and shook her head. “No,” she finally whispered so softly he could discern no emotion beyond horror. “Good Lord in heaven above, Nathan, no! It’s God’s own miracle that you have returned to us.”

  “And finding you in another man’s arms?” He couldn’t keep the question to himself.

  “What?”

  “I saw you. His arm was around you.”

  The image returned in crisp detail, and Nathan’s jaw clenched with the memory. At the time, he’d acted—or reacted—and not spared a second for thought or emotion over it. He’d stepped in and made himself known. Now, though, he had the luxury of reflection.

  He’d recognized an easy awareness between the couple. A softness that Nathan had never shared with his wife. Upon realizing it was Mariah with that Gabriel fellow, it had irked the bejesus out of him.

  It still did.

  “It was nothing.” She dismissed his observation with a shake of her head, but her eyes skittered away. “He was simply comforting me.”

  “Comforting you?” Nathan repeated, doing nothing to disguise his disbelief. “Is your grief still so strong that you need comfort even all these months later?”

  Mariah stiffened, holding herself unmoving, as though she had just absorbed a blow. He could see what it cost her to do so, and then she took a long, deep breath. She didn’t speak.

  Awareness shuddered through him as her breasts rose and fell, and his body stirred with a familiar ache. He needed the comfort of her female warmth, wanted to claim it for himself and eliminate any questions about exactly to whom she belonged.

  When was the last time you desired a woman’s touch in that same way?

  It didn’t matter, any more than it meant something that it was Mariah who inspired such a reaction. She was his wife, after all, and he’d known her carnally more times than he’d ever known another woman that way. Hell, he’d given up everything to be with her. More than once.

  Did he regret it now?

  “Well?” he asked when she didn’t respond.

  She blinked, took another breath, and leveled him with an aching gaze made even more poignant by her unshed tears.

  “I was feeling nostalgic. Your birthday is coming.”

  And so it was. He’d forgotten that detail until she mentioned it. Still, the sentiment surprised him.

  “You remembered?”

  “Of course I remembered.” She shook her head. “I’ve always known the day you were born, always tried to make it special for you.”

  It was true. Memories of her cheerful face whenever their families had united in birthday celebrations assailed him. And there had been packages he’d received from her when he’d been away fighting.

  Why hadn’t he ever thanked her?

  “Even if I hadn’t, Carolyn would never have allowed any of us to forget,” Mariah added a moment later. “She’s planning a . . .”

  Her voice faded awkwardly, leaving him curious. “Planning what?”

  “A . . . remembrance.” She nodded. “Yes, that’s what it is. A remembrance of your life.”

  “Christ.” Nathan frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “Dinner. I’m told the Irish call it a wake. For your mother, it’s a remembrance, as I said.”

  He’d known an Irishman or two in the army and had heard of their ritual ceremony. Knowing Carolyn and her lifelong penchant for the dramatic told him all he needed to know about her plans for this remembrance. Wailing, crying, gnashing of teeth, and his mother as the center of attention.

  He wanted no part of it.

  “Then my arrival will spare us all.”

  “She will still want to—”

  “No.”

  Mariah shook her head. “This will be difficult for her. She struggles. Losing Jordan and then you. She never recovered.”

  “And my miraculous resurrection?”

  Mariah reached out like she meant to touch him, but then dropped her arm. “Nathan, we must go.” She shook her head. “Carolyn deserves to know you’re alive.”

  He knew his wife spoke the truth, and he honestly didn’t begrudge the comfort his arrival might give his mother. His own emotions hadn’t quite settled to something he understood, however, and he hated the thought of the scene that Carolyn was sure to enact. He preferred to stay there in the ragtag cemetery and question Mariah about . . . what, exactly?

  He knew very well that they had far too much to say, to understand, than could be shared in these restless moments while they stood next to his fraudulent grave.

  “All right.” He nodded once. “Surprised Tristan hasn’t ridden out to investigate Gabriel leading in a strange horse.”

  “Tristan rode out this morning. I don’t know where he went or when he’ll be back.”

  Equal parts relief and disappointment scraped through Nathan. A small part of him wanted—needed—to see his brother again. Alive and well and another survivor of all the hell the last four years had wrought. The rest of him shot up a quick prayer of thanksgiving that he wouldn’t have to revea
l himself to both Tristan and Carolyn at the same time.

  There would be questions asked and answers expected. Only now was he beginning to realize exactly what that meant. The long days and weeks on the trail had conditioned him to expect a certain kind of homecoming. Arriving and discovering the mistaken report of his death now changed everything.

  The possibility of simple answers to undemanding questions seemed to have disappeared along with the Cause, lost to hopes and dreams of a future that could never be. Confusion, longing, even heartache combined to leave him and so many others wondering how in the devil life had become such a godforsaken mess.

  Nathan swallowed an ugly curse. Somehow, that seemed the least of his worries right now. More concerning was a much larger question for which he may never find an answer.

  Would he ever find a place where he belonged again?

  Nathan had predicted his mother’s reaction to seeing him alive, and he was right. One look at him and she screamed, threw her hands in the air, and fainted dead away. She collapsed in a puddle on the floor before he could take as much as a step in her direction.

  “Carolyn,” Mariah cried as she hurried to the other woman’s side.

  Nathan didn’t hesitate. He stepped close, scooped his mother into his arms, and carried her toward the front parlor. He hadn’t been gone so long that he didn’t remember the layout of the house.

  He laid her gently on the settee that remained from his childhood. His mother had always been so proud of the purple velvet upholstery. “The color of royalty,” she’d always claimed. “So fitting for the Sangre Real.”

  She looked tiny and almost frail, her skin pale, with new wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. While she had never been a particularly strong or independent woman, or considerate of other’s needs or wants, he regretted his part in making life any more difficult for her than it already had been as Jordan Fairchild’s wife.