Forever, For Love

by Becky Lee Weyrich

  A hand touched his. “Ward, how wonderful to see you again.”

  “Why, Angelica.” He smiled down into her glowing face, his eyes going, in spite of himself, to the deep valley between her breasts. “I was just thinking about you.”

  She laughed softly. “I’m glad to hear that. I’ve been thinking about you more often than I like to admit.” She went up on tiptoe and brushed his cheek with her lips. “I’m glad you’re back, Ward. Welcome home.”

  Pandora turned just in time to see her cousin kiss her husband. It all seemed very innocent. But something about the look on Angelica’s face, the gleam of her pale eyes struck a warning chord in Pandora’s heart. She moved as swiftly as she could toward the two of them.

  Angelica saw her coming and quickly whispered to Ward, “I’m leaving Jacob so you don’t have to marry Pandora after all. I remember everything you told me that you wanted in a wife. I’m the one you need, Ward, not her. Go ahead and announce your engagement. We’ll work out our plans later. Of course, you’ll want to let my cousin down gently. I understand that. You needn’t worry. Jacob will welcome her back.” Then, quickly, Angelica moved away through the crowd.

  Ward stood stunned, staring after her. He tried to think back to what he might have said to her on that night so long ago. The whole evening was a blur.

  Pandora interrupted her husband’s frenzied thoughts. “Darling, I think it’s time now,” she whispered.

  Ward stared down at Pandora lovingly. He decided not to tell her about her cousin’s crazy declaration. What did it matter? In a few moments, Angelica and all of Galveston would know the truth.

  “Yes,” Ward agreed. “We shouldn’t wait any longer.”

  Before they could make their announcement, Horace Sherwood took the floor, calling out for attention. “My dear friends, we all know that we are here tonight to welcome Pandora and Ward back to Galveston and to wish them well on their coming marriage. I think a toast is in order.”

  A murmur of excitement swept the room. The guests applauded and cast congratulatory smiles toward the couple.

  Taking Pandora’s hand, Ward led her toward Mr. Sherwood. “Horace, we’d like to say a few words, if we may.”

  “Of course, Ward. Come right up here.”

  Ward kept an arm protectively about Pandora’s slim waist as they turned toward the crowd. Oddly enough, it was Angelica’s face that stood out when he looked about the room. She was smiling, a secretive, mysterious smile meant only for him.

  “When I wrote to Horace, asking his permission to marry his lovely niece, I assumed that we’d come back home for the biggest, finest wedding Galveston ever saw.” He paused and looked down at Pandora, gazing into her eyes adoringly. “Well, I hate to disappoint all of you, but…”

  An anxious murmur rustled through the room. Only Angelica seemed pleased by what Ward had said so far.

  Ward raised his hand for silence. He laughed and said, “Don’t get me wrong, folks! Pandora and I aren’t breaking our engagement. It’s just that we couldn’t wait. We were married on the ship coming home.”

  Once again, Ward’s gaze fell on Angelica. Her smile froze for an instant, then her expression turned into something as near hatred as he had ever seen. A moment later, she fled the room. No one else noticed. The guests were too busy oohing and ahing and offering congratulations to the happy couple.

  It was long after dinner before Jacob Saenger approached Pandora and asked her to dance.

  “I’ve been trying to get a moment to speak with you all night, Pandora, but you’ve been surrounded.”

  Pandora had noticed when she first set eyes on Jacob earlier that he had changed. Now the full impact of the difference hit her. When last she’d seen him, Jacob had looked years younger. Tonight, he wore the expression of an aging man trying desperately to hold on to his youth. Lines of fatigue creased the corners of his eyes. A worried frown seemed permanently imprinted on his face. His gaze was dull and troubled. His shoulders sagged as if he carried some great weight.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, too, Jacob,” she said quietly. “Come. Let’s go out to the veranda.”

  The warm night breeze outside was scented with salt and the sweet perfume of oleanders. For a moment, Pandora closed her eyes and the years blew away, taking her back… back to her lonely childhood, when she’d never felt that she truly belonged. How different her life was now.

  “Where’s Angelica?” Pandora asked. It suddenly dawned on her that, though she had seen her cousin earlier, they had not even said hello all evening.

  Jacob shrugged. “I suppose she went home.”

  “Without even telling you?”

  “She seldom tells me anything these days. She probably had one of her headaches.”

  “I’m sorry, Jacob.” Pandora wasn’t sure what she was sorry about, but it seemed the proper thing to say at the moment.

  Jacob reached out and touched Pandora’s hand, not looking into her face. “No, Pandora. I’m the one who’s sorry. I made a terrible mistake by not marrying you.”

  Gently, Pandora drew her hand away. “Jacob, we’re both married now. I don’t think we should talk about that. I’m happy. I’d hoped you were happy, too.”

  Gripping her shoulders, he turned her to face him. His eyes blazed with emotion. “How could I be happy with anyone but you, Pandora? Our parents understood what I was too foolish to see—that you and I belong together.”

  “No, Jacob!” Pandora shrugged away from his touch and his gaze. “You mustn’t say such things. You have a wife and I have a husband. I’ll always feel something special for you, but I love Ward!”

  “Then I suppose there’s nothing more you have to say to me.

  Pandora stared at Jacob. How could he do this to her? After all that he had put her through! She wanted to rage at him, to remind him that he had broken their engagement… that he was the one who had sent her fleeing to Europe in despair. But his voice was so filled with pain that she could not lash out at him. Instead, she gripped his hand and said softly, “Jacob, you know I’ll always be your friend. If you ever need me, I’ll be there.”

  “Thank you, Pandora. As it happens, I need a friend just now. Desperately!”

  Jacob went on to tell Pandora everything—far more than she wanted to hear about his life with Angelica. She ached for him, but what could she do? When she asked as much, Jacob replied with a weak smile, “You’ve done more than your share already, Pandora, just listening to me whine about my misery.”

  Then he turned and walked back inside, leaving Pandora alone in the starry, perfumed night. As she gazed up at the sky, trying to dispel the gloom of Jacob’s tale, another hand touched hers.

  “Darling, it’s getting late. Are you ready to go home?”

  Pandora turned and clung to Ward. How strong and good and loving he was. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to be with him, to show him how much his love meant to her.

  “I’m such a lucky woman,” she whispered, staring up at him through tear-misted eyes. “Yes, take me home, my darling. Please, take me home.”

  The great golden bed cradled Pandora as if it had been awaiting her return, lo, these many years. Late in the night, as she and Ward held each other—touching, kissing, making glorious love—visions of the past mingled with the present in a strange, exotic mirage. One moment, Ward was staring down into her face with his stormy-gray eyes, watching for the instant when total ecstasy would claim her. As the height of pleasure arrived, she saw his eyes turn green and cunning, and her hands on his naked body felt the old, dear scars.

  The shade of Jean Laffite haunted the bed, stealing into Ward’s body to love her from the grave. Pandora found his ghostly visitation doubly satisfying. She knew for certain that the long-sought spirit of her soul-mate resided in her new husband’s body. A body that even now was a part of hers.

  Ward knelt over her, stroking slowly, whispering his litany of love words, caressing her brea
sts, and smiling into her wide green eyes.

  “I love to watch the expression on your face, darling. You seem always surprised when the moment comes. Your eyes grow wide and gleam. Your lips part and the tip of your tongue glides out.” He quickened the pace just a bit. “Now!” he cried. “Now it’s beginning!”

  Ward guessed correctly. Even as he spoke the words, Pandora felt the hot flash of sensation flowing up her legs, spreading through her belly, and flooding her breasts. Even as the moment of total ecstasy came, Pandora stared up into Ward’s face, seeing his eyes change from gray to green. One moment he was her husband, the next, her long lost lover. She could feel both of them, moving as one, inside her, bringing such exquisite pleasure that it was almost painful.

  Finally, she could bear it no longer. Closing her eyes, she moaned as the storm tide of passion ebbed.

  When he had seen it all, Ward lowered himself to her and kissed her deeply. For a long time, they lay coupled, letting the pleasure slip away slowly.

  In the warm, love-scented darkness after Ward turned out the lights, it seemed to Pandora that both men held her and stirred within her and kissed her lips and breasts. There could be no doubt that Ward and Laffite were one.

  The thought was not shocking, but rather a soothing, fulfilling truth. Pandora kissed her husband and sighed contentedly. She felt totally, beautifully, wonderfully loved.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Pandora and Ward spent the rest of the summer and early fall settling into their cozy castle. Marriage had performed the most extraordinary miracle for them. Single, they had both been considered eccentric and even a bit bizarre. By simply speaking a few vows and exchanging rings, they became honored members of Galveston society. All of Galveston looked on the couple as trendsettlers. Wherever the Gabriels went, so went the rest of the island. When Ward had a new silver brooch designed especially for his wife—a crescent moon set with diamonds and attached to a constellation of tiny stars by the thinnest of silver chains—every woman in town wanted one like it. When Ward and Pandora announced, after a trip to his silver mine, that Mexico was definitely the place to vacation, European travelers from Galveston changed their plans. When Ward presented Pandora with a pair of blue-eyed, white angora kittens to replace the ones which drowned mysteriously in the fountain in her uncle’s garden while she was away, angoras became the favored pets all up and down Broadway. When Pandora discovered a new and daring designer in Paris, the House of Worth found itself deserted by the ladies of Galveston society.

  Mr. and Mrs. Ward Gabriel—handsome, social, charming, rich, and obviously in love—could do no wrong as far as their neighbors were concerned. They were the perfect couple. No one suspected that tension still smoldered and sometimes flared to full life when Pandora mentioned Jean Laffite to her husband.

  Only Dr. and Mrs. Jacob Saenger looked on the couple with anything short of total approval. To Jacob’s credit, he kept any further declarations of his feelings to himself—suffering long, but silently. Angelica, however, was less discreet in her continuing flirtation with Ward. With each passing day, it seemed that she inched ever closer to the dangerous edge of sanity. Jacob tried to control her, but there was nothing he could do. Things became so bad in his father’s house, that Jacob was forced to use the last cent of his savings to buy Angelica her own home—a handsome frame house with gingerbread trim just off of Broadway.

  “You call this a proper house?” she shrieked as he proudly took her on a tour of their fine new home. “Why, this isn’t even as grand as Pandora’s servants’ quarters!”

  Jacob curbed his temper, answering as evenly as he could manage, “And I am not Ward Gabriel, Angel.”

  “Don’t call me that!” she snapped. “Don’t you dare ever call me that again.”

  “I’m only trying to make you understand that I’m not a rich man. I don’t own a silver mine or a fleet of ships or even a mercantile store. I will never be wealthy, Angelica. You knew that when you married me.”

  “No!” she shrieked. “You tricked me! You promised me a honeymoon in Europe, a fine mansion, a life of luxury, everything that Pandora has.”

  Jacob shook his head wearily. How many times had he heard all this before? There was no use arguing with her. Angelica would never be happy. Not even if she had everything her cousin possessed, not even if she had Ward Gabriel.

  Gently, Jacob suggested for the thousandth time, “Perhaps if we had a child, Angelica? That’s what you’ve always wanted. Why did you give up hope? A baby might change everything for us.”

  Her ice-blue eyes narrowed and she moved away from him. “Oh, no. You think I’ll let you back into my bed if you promise me a child. You are the reason I haven’t conceived. You, Jacob Saenger! You’re not man enough to father children. I won’t put up with your fumbling and groping ever again. I’ve told you what to do. Get me a baby! I’ve waited long enough. My patience is wearing thin.”

  Jacob felt his gut twist. He had hoped that Angelica would forget all about her wild scheme. She hadn’t mentioned it in a long time.

  As for trying to worm his way back into his wife’s bed, that was sheer nonsense. He wasn’t sure he could ever bring himself to make love to Angelica again. He had lost his desire for her many months before she began refusing him. An occasional visit to Postoffice Street kept him satisfied these days.

  “Well, Angelica, what do you want me to do?” he asked finally, a tone of weary resignation in his voice. “I’ve put all our money into this place. I can probably sell it, but we can’t buy anything else until after the sale. That would mean staying on with my father. I leave it up to you.”

  Again she turned on him. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? It makes you happy to see me waiting on that dreadful old man as if I were a servant. Well, no more, Jacob! I’d live in Crazy Nettie’s shack just to get away from him.”

  So it was settled. Dr. and Mrs. Saenger moved into their pleasant, new residence on 13th Street. Jacob felt even the street number bode ill for their disintegrating marriage.

  At first, Pandora and Ward invited the Saengers to their new home frequently. As time went on and Angelica became more blatant in her pursuit of Ward, Pandora left their names off her guest lists more often than she included them.

  “I hate excluding them, Ward, but what else can I do? Jacob understands. He even spoke to me about it. He said he feels uncomfortable going anywhere with her these days. He’s especially embarrassed by the way she throws herself at you. The whole island is talking and he knows it.”

  Ward leaned back in his easy chair in the library and puffed his pipe, trying to read his wife’s thoughts. “I hope you don’t think I’ve encouraged your cousin, darling.”

  Pandora laughed. “Angelica needs no encouragement, Ward. I know her all too well. If you had given her the slightest sign that you were interested, she would have left Jacob by now.” Pandora shook her head as she stared down at the guest list for their upcoming dinner party. “Sometimes I feel so sorry for both of them. How horrible it must be for a husband and wife not to love each other… not to trust each other totally.”

  Ward frowned. Was Pandora making a veiled accusation that he was leading Angelica on? He brushed the troubling thought aside and went to her, wrapping his arms about her. “We’ll never know about that, will we, darling?”

  He kissed her deeply, letting one hand stray inside her dressing gown to explore and arouse.

  “Ready for bed, dear?” Pandora whispered.

  Ward grinned and nuzzled her ear. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Once they were undressed and in their bed, Pandora gently fended off her husband’s eager advances. “I have something to tell you first, Ward,” she said.

  He continued holding her, petting her as he answered. “Then you’d better tell me quickly.”

  “Remember last week I mentioned to you that I’d seen Nettie?”

  “Yes, I remember.” He tried to disguise his an
noyance. After seeing Crazy Nettie, Pandora invariably experienced one of her disturbing visions of Jean Laffite. He’d begged his wife to stay away from that old woman.

  “Well, she said the oddest things to me. She’d sent me an urgent note, asking me to meet her at the grove. When I arrived, she acted very strangely.”

  Ward laughed humorlessly. “There’s certainly nothing unusual about that, Pan. Nettie’s a strange old woman.”

  “No, I mean strange in a different sort of way. She frightened me, Ward.”

  He sat up, all attention now as Pandora told him of the incident.

  “I drove alone to the grove that afternoon as Nettie instructed. The place looked deserted when I arrived, but I had this peculiar feeling that someone was watching me as I approached. I climbed down and hitched the horses to a post near the three trees, then wandered into the deep shade, calling Nettie’s name softly.

  “Suddenly, Nettie appeared from out of the shadows. I can’t imagine why I felt so nervous, but I actually cried out in alarm, she startled me so. I know the grove is supposedly haunted, but I’ve never felt afraid there before.”

  Pandora paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. Ward, anxious for his wife’s emotional well-being, said, “You’ve seemed especially edgy these past few days, Pan. Maybe you should see old Doc Saenger. But go on, tell me what she had to say.”

  “She apologized for frightening me, saying she was concerned that I might have been followed.”

  “By whom?” Ward asked.

  Pandora looked at her husband sheepishly as she answered. “Her exact words were: ‘You know… that woman, the one with the dark hair and eyes. She ain’t to be trusted, that one.’”

  “Who on earth was she talking about?” Ward demanded.

  Pandora shook her head. “I don’t know. I tried to think who she might mean. I had no idea at the time. Later that night, in a vision, the answer came to me.”