The ladder that led upward was only two steps away, so Eugenia began to climb it, one rung at a time, until she came to the top. She stuck her head up through the small hole in the floor of the hayloft and almost fainted from the shock of her discovery. They hadn't even heard her approach. They were too entangled to have heard anything. Eugenia felt frozen to the spot watching Drew and Elizabeth. Elizabeth met Drew's every fierce thrust inside her small, thin pelvis, her skirts were pushed upward, revealing it all to Eugenia's widened eyes. How Drew's fingers were working on Elizabeth's exposed breasts that had fallen from between her unbuttoned cotton dress. The bodies continued to move against each other, and as Drew's body began to tremble outwardly, Eugenia knew what was about to happen. He was at the height of his sexual arousal, and with her own sister. Eugenia covered her eyes and began to scream, over and over again. Mind bursting screams. Then she blacked out.
"Eugenia?"
Eugenia heard a voice above her, and felt a damp rag on her forehead but couldn't make out whose face it was so close to hers.
"Eugenia?" Drew said once again, rubbing one of her hands briskly. "Are you all right? Eugenia, please wake up."
Slowly remembering what she had seen, she pulled her hand away and turned her face from his. The feelings of rage, hate, insult, all mixed into one were seizing her, making her hate him more than she had ever hated anyone in her entire life.
"I'm sorry, Eugenia," he said. "Please forgive me. I don't know what made me do it."
"How many times?" she murmured, covering her mouth with the back of her hand, still refusing to look at him. •
"Dammit, hon," he stammered. "Don't do this. You know I still love you. Only you."
She jerked her head around and glared into his eyes. "How many times, dammit," she shouted. "Ten, twenty… ?"
"Today was the only time," he said softly, lowering his head. Eugenia could see small stems of straw still deeply imbedded in his tight curls of black, making her heart ache all over again.
"You're lying, Drew," she snapped back. "You know you're lying."
"It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't turned away from me all these nights," he said, trying to defend himself.
Eugenia choked back a sob. "You've got to be kidding," she hissed, remembering how tired she had been each evening after a full day's chores.
After being gone from the homestead for so long, she hadn't been used to such hard labor, and it had begun taking its toll. Her joints and muscles had only now just begun to quit aching at the end of the day. And how could they have had a sexual relationship, with Elizabeth in the bed next to Eugenia's? Plus, there was her Mama. Since Drew and Eugenia hadn't gotten married yet, her Mama would have said they were sinning if she had known they had slept together. Many nights it had been hard for Eugenia to not creep down into the living room to snuggle next to Drew on the floor in front of the fire. She had even thought of how soothing his fingers could have been to her aching muscles. But she had remembered her Mama, and how close her bedroom was to that area of the house. No, it had been impossible for she and Drew to have any kind of sexual relationship—unless he had taken her to the barn, as he had Elizabeth.
"No, I'm not kidding," Drew said further, then stopped when Mama entered the room.
"Eugenia?" her Mama said, going to her, placing her bony fingers to Eugenia's forehead. "How's my baby? Are you going to be all right?"
"Yes, Mama," she said softly, eyeing her Mama carefully, wondering if she knew.
"What in tarnation made you fall like that, darlin?" her Mama asked.
Eugenia now knew that her Mama didn't know. It would kill her to know that Elizabeth had thrown herself at the first man who had come along. A man that had just happened to belong to her own sister.
"I guess I've been working too hard, Mama." She sighed resolutely.
"Well, tomorrow I want you to stay in bed. I'll make some hot soup. That should put some warmth in your belly and make you feel much better."
"That sounds just fine, Mama," Eugenia said. Then Elizabeth entered the room, still wearing the dress that Drew had lifted, searching beneath with his…
"Eugenia?" Elizabeth whined, stooping down beside the bed.
Eugenia turned her head away and clamped her mouth closed tight.
"Eugenia? Please speak to me," Elizabeth said quietly. "Please remember Mama," she added into Eugenia's ear.
Yes, Eugenia remembered. She turned her gaze to meet Elizabeth's and saw not a trace of remorse, but rather, a look of triumph. In fact, her eyes looked more alive than Eugenia had ever seen them look before. And the color of her cheeks? So pink, much more than just a ride in a buggy would cause.
"What do you want, Elizabeth?" she asked quietly, pulling a blanket up securely beneath her chin.
"Can I get you anything? Maybe a cup of hot tea?"
"Now ain't that sweet of your sister, Eugenia?" Mama said, smiling kindly.
"Yes. Real sweet," Eugenia said, watching, slowly beginning to hate her sister all over again.
"Well? Kin I git it?" Elizabeth prodded.
"No. You children just visit," Mama said, swishing away with her skirt trailing along behind her. "I'll get us all some tea. Might do us all some good. Want to help, Drew?" she asked, stopping to eye him warmly.
"Yep. Might do me some good to have somethin' to busy my fingers with," he said, taking another fast glance toward Eugenia, then Elizabeth.
Eugenia watched as they both left the room, then glowered toward Elizabeth. "And to think I was feeling sorry for you for being so tiny and frail," she snapped, sitting upright in bed. "And all the while you've been having fun with my man behind my back."
"I cain't help myself, Eugenia," Elizabeth whined again. "I ain't never been 'round men. I had to find out what it felt like. I only wanted him to make me feel good. Once. I didn't 'spect him to ask me all those other times."
Eugenia flung herself from the bed, feeling the heat creeping into her face. "All those other times?" she asked, doubling her fists at her side.
"Yes. Every day. When you've been workin' in the fields? We went out to the barn. I didn't figger you'd care none. You are my sister, you know."
Eugenia put her hands to her head. "Oh, God, Elizabeth," she moaned. "I know you're not really all that dumb. You're Papa's child, so you couldn't be that dumb. This is all an act. I know it. You wanted a man, so you decided to take Drew. And the worst part of it is he was so willing to participate in your little venture. I thought he had truly loved me. But I know he can never love me the way I want a man to love me."
"There's somethin' I needs to tell you, Eugenia," Elizabeth said, going to Eugenia's side, touching her softly on the arm. Eugenia drew away from her, feeling like her touch was the touch of a knife cutting her deeply.
"What else could you say that could hurt anymore than I've already been hurt?" she said. "Go on. Tell all, little sister."
"I'm going to have a baby," Elizabeth drawled.
The room began to spin around in front of Eugenia's eyes. When she looked toward Elizabeth she saw two of her. She felt as though she was going to be ill. Clutching her stomach, she tumbled back down on the bed and buried her face in a pillow. She didn't want Elizabeth to see her renewed tears. She had to be stronger. She had to show that the hurt wasn't that deep. She had to think now of her Mama. How would she think of this deceit from the daughter who she had always cherished like a fragile kitten.
"Did you hear me, Eugenia?" Elizabeth said loudly, going to Eugenia, rubbing her fingers through Eugenia's red hair.
"Don't touch me," Eugenia growled, turning over, facing her. "You can tell me so easily that you're going to have a baby? Drew's baby? What kind of sister are you?"
"Eugenia, you've got to help me," Elizabeth said, tears wetting her long, thick lashes. "Mama. She doesn't know. How kin I tell her? She'll hate me."
"Never as much as I hate you, sister," Eugenia said, wiping the tears from her own eyes.
"Mama might ha
ve a heart attack like Papa if we tell her," Elizabeth continued. "What kin I do?"
Eugenia's mind began to turn, knowing she had to think of Mama, knowing that what Elizabeth was saying was true. Yes, she had to think of her Mama. Only of her Mama.
"I'll take care of it for you," she said. "But only for Mama's sake. You always remember that."
"What kin you do?"
"Drew will marry you," Eugenia said, almost choking on the words. "He has a house in Colorado Springs. He will take you there, marry you, and have a home for your baby. My niece or nephew. That's all we can do."
"But will Drew marry me?" Elizabeth sobbed. "What if he really loves you?"
Eugenia hated saying the words, but they came much more easily than she had thought possible. "I don't love him, Elizabeth," she said flatly. "It's as simple as that. So there's no problem."
"You don't love him?" Elizabeth sighed deeply, her blue eyes wide, almost like the sky on a fresh spring morning.
"No. The only way I can describe my feeling for that son of a bitch is to use the word hate," Eugenia hissed, digging her fingernails into the palms of her hands.
"I cain't believe that," Elizabeth said, flopping down onto the bed, lowering her head. "I jist cain't believe that."
"You'd better believe it," Eugenia snapped back. She swung around as Drew and Mama entered the room. She looked at Drew with deep contempt, and she knew that he couldn't help but see it in her eyes. She rose from the bed, held her back straight and walked on past him out of the room. When he followed her, she continued until she got out on the front porch, which was flooded by the full moon's light. With trembling fingers, she sat down on the porch swing, and waited for his arrival by her side.
"Eugenia?" he said, sitting down beside her.
"Drew, she's pregnant," she said flatly.
"What… ?" he gasped, jumping from the swing, going to a porch rail and hanging his head.
"It's true," Eugenia mumbled. "You Goddamned son of a bitch, you got my sister pregnant. Now what do you think of them apples?"
"It just can't be," he said thickly. Then he swung around to face her. His profile was so keen in the moonlight it made her heart ache.
"I love you, Eugenia," he added. He fell to his knees on the porch in front of her, grasping her hands. "I do. I only love you," he continued to argue, squeezing her hands as she tried to pull them free.
"Oh, Drew," she moaned, turning her head away. She couldn't stop the tears. She knew that she loved him even though he had been unfaithful to her. Even now, before they were to be married. And with her own sister.
"Oh, my love," Drew said, sitting down in the swing beside her, cradling her in his arms. "What have I done? What have I done?"
"You do love me, don't you, Drew?" she said, putting her fingers through his hair, knowing this would probably be the last time she would be able to do this. He belonged to Elizabeth now. He was father to her child.
"Always, my love," he said, then crushed her lips beneath his. The familiar drumming in her brain began to seize her as his fingers worked downward to reach beneath her dress. "Only you, my Eugenia," he moaned.
She jerked away and rose from the swing, feeling flushed from need, and from the embarrassment of realizing he still had such a mesmerizing effect on her.
"I want you to leave here tomorrow," she snapped angrily.
"Leave here… tomorrow?" he gasped.
"Yes. Take Elizabeth and leave," she continued. "Take her to Colorado Springs. Marry her and take her to our house. Give her child a name and a home. You must."
"But I can't. I don't truly love her."
"You must do what you must do, Drew," she said firmly. "You've gotten my sister pregnant, you must do the right thing by her."
"God, Eugenia," he groaned, trying to go to her once again.
"Please don't touch me. Ever again," she hissed. "It only confuses things further."
"What will your Mama think?"
"I will think of a way to explain it all away," Eugenia said. "Tomorrow morning, you just pretend you and Elizabeth are going into town for more supplies. Then take a train from there and go on to Colorado Springs."
"Dammit all to hell," Drew shouted, stomping from the porch.
Eugenia watched his shadow until it disappeared from view. She remembered how he had a tendency to disappear into thin air so she followed him, knowing that she wouldn't let him get from her sight. Even if she had to stay awake all night watching him.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-three
Looking out the small window of the Cripple Creek Special, Eugenia listened to the mournful tune of the train's whistle as it wound around hills and curves. It was a much easier way for Eugenia's return to Cripple Creek. It had been a long ride by stagecoach from her parents' homestead to Florissant where she had heard that a train station had been built. Going by train she had found it possible to take many of her Papa's books back with her to The Towers. Everything else she had sold with the house.
Squinting through the bright rays of the late evening's rosy sunset, Eugenia could see her mountain in the distance. Only the bottom half was visible now, due to the usual hazy fog that captured its top half.
It had been so hard to leave the two graves behind. She felt the emptiness gnawing at her insides. She couldn't help .but feel a bit responsible, but yet she had to make herself believe that she had done all that she could to help her Mama get through each distressful day after Elizabeth's departure. Elizabeth and Mama had been too close, for too many years, for Mama to accept her sudden absence from the homestead.
Her Mama's eyes were such a pale blue. They had shown that she guessed the reason for Elizabeth's leaving, but she had never, not once, spoken that truth out loud.
The winter had been a long, lonely, cold one. Eugenia had fought against the cold winds, cutting and splitting firewood, milking the cow in the drafty barn, idling time away in the hayloft, dreaming that it had been she and Drew stretched out on the straw making passionate love. When the feelings got too strong, she would have to return to the house and her Mama, who had quit living in a sense. Her long days had been spent rocking slowly back and forth, watching the fire dancing in the fireplace. It was as though her Mama had been waiting. But Eugenia hadn't been able to figure out for what. Had it been for her Papa, Elizabeth, or death?
Pulling the pin from her stiff-brimmed, round hat, she rearranged her hat over her red curls, then stuck the pin back in place, watching the people around her. She had so hungered for people those long winter days and nights, to hear some signs of laughter, to make her aware that there was some happiness left in the world. Eugenia could still see her Mama the way she had found her that evening after she had come in from chopping wood. Eugenia had noticed her Mama's bent head. But she had only thought her asleep. Wanting to get her in a more comfortable position, Eugenia had gone to her and touched her arm to awaken her. But one touch had been all that it had taken. Her Mama had been dead for some time.
"Heart failure," the doctor had said.
Eugenia had known that with her Mama "heart failure" was just a nice way to say "heartbreak." Yes, Eugenia was well aware that her Mama had pined her days away for things that could no longer be.
To Eugenia's relief, houses began to dot the area around the railroad tracks. She smoothed the green silk folds of her skirt and felt her pulsebeat increase, anxious to be in Cripple Creek once again. She had her own home and her girls to see to. It had been ten months now since she had left. Her thoughts went to Adam, Nell, Iris, Alison, Key. How had they managed what she, herself, owned? She no longer wanted to think of the graves that she had left behind, or the house that now belonged to another family—a house that had been made by her Papa. But she brought part of her Papa with her, she brought his prized books.
With wide eyes, Eugenia watched as the train pulled up beside a small timbered house that had a large sign hanging above double doors that led inside to the depot. The name "Cripple Creek" p
ainted in bold red print made her heart swell with warmth. She felt alive once again. She was home. And she knew that she would never leave again. Not for the likes of Drew. Never again. She would never let another man sweet talk her into an empty, senselessness in her brain. Her destiny would be her own. She was Madam Eugenia. Now, and forever.
Climbing from the slender little Pullman of the Cripple Creek Special, she waited for the boxes of her Papa's books to be loaded in a carriage, then proudly climbed into its seat and held onto her hat as the carriage moved down a slope, then onto Myers Avenue.
Laughing to herself, Eugenia looked at each crib at the side of the road, remembering her first day in this town and how the girls had yelled at her. But not this time. She could see them gaping from their small windows, watching Madam Eugenia returning to claim what was rightfully hers.
The dry breeze of July whipped loose papers across the street in front of the horse's hoofs, and the noise of the saloons and dance halls began to be more prominent as the carriage moved on farther into the town. Even the men stopped to stare at her return. She knew that they had all expected her to be respectfully married now, and possibly with child. She also knew that they all had to be wondering what had happened to prompt her return.
When the carriage pulled up in front of The Old Homestead Parlour, Eugenia eyed it in silence, wanting to enter it, to see Alison, but first she had the need to get to The Towers, unload her many boxes, and get refreshed before going into her house of girls. She had to be dressed appropriately to fit the title of Madam Eugenia.
"On to The Towers," she ordered, tilting her chin upward, proud to be the owner of such a grand house.
Ah, dear Frederick, she thought, as she passed by the Opera House. It had been willed to the community, and had been taken care of accordingly. As when Frederick was alive, the Opera House still gave only the best performances for Cripple Creek's population. But Eugenia had yet to enter this particular establishment. It reminded her too much of Frederick, and would surely only bring tears to her eyes.
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