Felicia Andrews

by Moonwitch

"What's your name?" she said.

  He hesitated, looking first to Martin, then to the street and the rivulets of dingy water that snaked between the stones. "I'm called Donald, " he said at last as though the name were painful to speak. "Donald Duane. "

  "Well, Mr . Duane, " she said, " I may see you again. "

  She clucked at the horse, and i t pulled away from the pair, away from the crowd, and she did not look back as she moved slowly down the street. Her head remained high, her gaze straight ahead, and she did not succumb to the grin that was pulling at her lips when she felt the gaping stares pinned to her back.

  The street narrowed, then broadened abruptly like the mouth of a funnel, and she found herself in a large square centered by a patch of grass and stand of trees. Carriages circled the small park, and men and women in elegant rain capes were moving quickly along the pavement. She blinked rapidly, turned in the saddle, and looked behind her. The world she had just left might never have existed from what she could see through the gray air. From where she sat the battered street was little more than the unsavory mouth of a slightly larger than usual alley. No one passing it even gave it a glance.

  Incredible, she thought as she made her way to the square's west end.

  The buildings facing the park were tall, gloomy now in the afternoon's diminishing shower but nevertheless impressive for their ornate facades and blatant declarations of wealth and enjoyment. Here, a theater that blared the latest Shakespearean triumph of a local company; there, a French restaurant that was complete with an outdoor cafe now shrouded by oilskins to keep the elaborate chairs and tables dry; a trio of shops displaying the latest in beaver and seal, silk and suede. Most of them, she knew, catered primarily to women; flanking them were tailors declaring this or that appointment to Her Majesty the Queen.

  She was about to turn into Union Street and make her way back toward Wilcox's office when she saw a familiar head bobbing frantically down the center of the street. She lifted herself out of the saddle and waved vigorously, shouted once, and Peterson swerved his mount out of the mainstream, edging her own horse to the curbing.

  "Where the hell-"

  She quieted him with a simple "I got lost. "

  A concern-edged scowl examined her candidly for injury before he nodded once, sharply, and they rode in tandem across the square and onto the coast road. Almost as soon as the last building faded from view, the cobblestones vanished and they were slogging through thick black mud. The only sound beyond the keening of the wind was the squelching of hooves searching for firm footing. And it was not until then that Amanda realized how open she was to the elements. Her hair was plastered hard against her skull, her trousers were heavy with contained water, and when she glanced down at her chest, she saw with a faint smile that the shirt had grown almost transparent against her wet skin. No wonder poor Martin was so anxious to have me meet his friend Molly, she thought, with no illusions whatsoever about the sort of establishment Molly ran.

  But as soon as she remembered the hulking, somewhat dim-witted giant, a chill not born of the lowering temperature shook her and made her tremble violently.

  Crazy, she thought in judgment of her actions. She had no idea what had made her decide that playing the silent Indian woman would make any impression at all on the two men. It was, unquestionably, merely an act of desperation, a falling back to the only way she knew to cope successfully with imminent danger. That her luck had held was nothing short of extraordinary, and the fact that her bravado perfom1ance might even produce something tangible before she left would, she thought, border on the miraculous. It was worth the effort, however, if something did come of it.

  And all of it hinged on her seeing a ghost.

  She gnawed softly at her lower lip as they crested a low hill and followed the road inland through a night-dark section of thickly grown forest. Although she had tried to convince herself once before that imagining the presence of Simon Maitland was only natural in a city of this size and population, she could not help but give way temporarily to the sensation--and it was, she admitted to herself, nothing more than that--that the apparition, and the mistaking of Duane for Maitland, was something more than sheer coincidence.

  She did not believe that Maitland was actually here in San Francisco. She could not believe it. But she had had sufficient experiences with instinct and dreams before this to know that something was brewing just beyond her ken. It was, of course, an easy temptation to believe that her mind had somehow been affected by the assault in the woodland; with such an explanation she need only wait for time to diminish the horror, and its aftermath.

  Yet everything that she had lived with for nearly three decades told her otherwise. There was something in the wind. Guilt?

  She ducked under a low-hanging branch and shuddered as it dripped water down her spine. Peterson grunted a soft laugh and urged his mount into a more rapid pace. Amanda followed suit, and soon they were galloping at near racing speed out of the trees and onto the stretch of pike that would, within half an hour or so, sweep past William's house.

  Sarah had once asked her innocently how badly she missed her children in Wyoming. Now Amanda considered the possibility that it was her guilt that was fraying her nerves.

  Leaving Alexander there to cope alone, not only with the day-to-day business of running the ranch but also with handling the remarkable exuberance of his incredibly active sister, might well have finally begun to prey on her conscience. It was guilt aimed at herself that had allowed Harley and Olivia to persuade her to leave; now guilt was beginning to drive her back again.

  The more she considered it, the more she began to believe in the plausibility of its truth.

  What better way to drive her back where she truly belonged than to conjure for herself the specter of that which she feared more than anything: the idea that Simon Maitland had somehow left his prison cell and had pursued her across a continent to exact his revenge. He was capable of it, she knew full well. It would be, in fact, almost predictable.

  Enough! she ordered herself. It was bad enough she would probably come down with every sickness known to man because of this ride through the breaking storm. There was no need to give herself a handful of salt to rub into the wound.

  An hour later, with the sky finally shedding its gray-snake clouds, she rose from the curve of the wooden tub in her room and rinsed herself with a dousing from the bucket at the tub's foot. The water had turned cold while she'd soaked the cold of the storm from her bones, and she yelped, laughed, grabbed for the toweling Olivia had left her when she'd brought the last pail from the iron stove in the kitchen. Quickly she rubbed herself until she saw pink rising on her skin, then wrapped herself snugly and stepped out to the floor. The small mirror over the chest of drawers reflected only her face and chest, and she closed her eyes gently to bring back the touch Trevor had left on her flesh.

  Three days, she thought then. And she shook her head slowly.

  A knock on the door startled her as she began slipping into her first underskirt, and Olivia poked her head around the jamb.

  "All ready?"

  Amanda nodded and grinned. "If I sit here and wait, I'll drive myself crazy. "

  Olivia eased into the room and shut the door behind her. She seemed unusually pale, her long face accentuated by light purple shadows under her large eyes. She wore a simple housedress that made her look even more plain, and her hair set in a severe bun over her left ear seemed brittle and unruly. She was nervous, her hands ducking behind her waist, clasping in front of her, vanishing again, and Amanda was glad when she finally perched on the edge of the bed and watched her dress.

  "Mr. Eagleton seems like a nice man," she said.

  "He is, " Amanda agreed.

  "Harley told me you thought he was boring."

  She grinned. "Harley wants me to save myself for Sheriff Mitchell. " The name came easily to her lips, but she surprised herself by feeling a faint twinge as it lingered.

  "Douglas is a fine man, to
o."

  "I know, " she said, her tone a warning that this man, at least, was not a topic for any conversation.

  Olivia toyed with the bun, pulling out a pearl-tipped pin and replacing it precisely where it had been before. "Harley wants to have children, you know," she blurted suddenly.

  Amanda whirled around from the depths of her wardrobe and stared at her. She had not thought Harley would ever consider being a father again. His first wife had run off shortly after he had arrived in Wyoming, and the daughter of that ill-fated union had died . . . had been killed during the troubles with Jason Quill.

  "No, " she said slowly. "No, I didn't know. "

  Olivia nodded, though she kept her gaze on the floor. "He thinks it would be good for us." She paused. "He . . . he likes Alex so much, Mandy! And if you could see the way he looks at Bess when you're not watching . . . I swear, I'd give anything to give him a son!"

  Amanda could think of nothing to say. Though there were at least twelve years difference in their ages, Olivia was still of childbearing years and, as Cal Davis would say, of hardy stock. Amanda did not know what trouble, if any, there had been between the Petersons, but she finally admitted to herself that she had been wondering why there'd been no issue in the marriage. It was almost as though Harley were too afraid, too wary since his daughter's death.

  She smiled gently. "These things take time, Livy," she said. "Guy and I were married over five years before Bess came along. Sometimes--"

  "Oh, I don't care about you and Cuy," Olivia snapped suddenly. "That's all I ever hear about. You and Guy. You and the river. You and this, you and that. " She looked up abruptly, and Amanda flinched at the glimmer of tears in the woman's eyes. "Mandy, I love you dearly, you know that, but there are times when I am sick to death of hearing your name!"

  Silence.

  The wind fluted in the eaves.

  "I'm sorry, " Olivia whispered. "I . . . I didn't come up here to tell you that."

  Amanda knelt quickly in front of her and took her hands. "But I'm glad you did, Livy. I had no idea-"

  "Don't," Olivia said, shaking her head. "Don't lie to me, Mandy. I know Harley loves you. Not the way he loves me, of course, but I know he loves you. And I know he'd give up his life for you if he had to. It's just that . . . it's just . . ." She shook her head again, and Amanda backed off, rising and turning to slip into her gown.

  "Do you want me to talk to him?"

  "No!"

  She closed her eyes at the lash of the word. "Olivia-"

  "You see," the woman said, her voice high now as a child who feels a deep hurt and cannot find the words to drive it out. "You see, I know what's going to happen, Mandy. Come September, Hope is going to want to sell the ranch. I've known that all along, even if she hasn't. She doesn't like it there, really, not with all those memories of her father and all. The only thing that's keeping her from going to that aunt back in Pittsburgh is Alex. You know that as well as I do."

  Amanda nodded. But she would not let herself think of her son, adopted or not, leaving his home for another woman.

  "Well, when that happens, Harley is going to want his old job back, and you're going to give it to him. Cal don't care for all the work. He's a foreman, not a manager. If it weren't for Alex, Carl would've been gone years ago. So he's going to go back to working for you. Harley, I mean. And when he does ...

  Amanda stood rigidly in front of the mirror, listening to the effort Olivia was making to stifle the sobs that rose in her throat. To move now, to try a hand on a shoulder, a cheek ... it would only backfire in indignant rage. She could only stand there and listen, and wonder why there were so many things that were beyond her control; why she and Harley could not simply be friends without the green mask of jealousy rising between them. Didn't Livy know that she had no intentions at all of seducing or otherwise compromising Harley's marriage, much less his emotions? Didn't she understand that Amanda had been dragged too many times to the fire?

  Why in hell didn't she see that Trevor was dragging her again, and she dared not permit it?

  Olivia rose suddenly and ran to the door. She flung it open and hurried into the corridor, returned a moment later and stared teary- eyed at her.

  "I won't let him go, Mandy, " she said. "I know you don't mean it. I know you ain't a bad woman who takes other women's men from them. But you're doin' it, and I won't let it be, d'you hear me? I won't let it be!"

  The door slammed.

  Amanda took a deep breath and reached for her brush. Trevor's carriage would be arriving soon, and she did not want to be late.

  But when she looked up again, to see how softly her hair lay over her shoulder, there were tears on her cheeks.

  NINE

  The carriage was an openwork of glittering bronze and velvet, drawn by a perfectly matched pair of blacks with smudged stars on their foreheads. Seated in the back, a down lap robe over her legs, Amanda could not help but imagine herself as a marquise on her regal way to some elegant function of state. The canopy overhead was of black silk and studded diamonds, the moon a perfect opal that lay carpets of silver thread along the road before her. The trees were ebony, the hills obsidian, and the infrequent glimpses of lakes and rivers slashes of platinum that blinded when looked upon too closely.

  The driver was a mute. She had discovered that after being helped into place by Harley and Sarah-Olivia had stayed behind in the house, peering out from the front-room curtains, her face a blur and therefore unreadable. She had asked the tall, lanky man if he were the owner of the carriage, and he'd turned around and pointed at his lips as he smiled. Then he shrugged and lifted his bound whip, waiting patiently until Sarah, bustling about as though the President himself had ordered Amanda's appearance, thrust a sachet of lavender into her white-gloved hands and kissed her soundly on the cheek. Amanda had not protested; the poor woman was in evident and intense need of something, anything, to take her mind off the fierce work William was now doing, even if it was a simple send-off to a dinner.

  As the road descended into a small cleft in the hills, Amanda for the twentieth time examined herself carefully. Her gown was of a glittering emerald green that offset the jade of her eyes. It had muted gold trim about the puffed sleeves and satin-banded hem. The bodice, which scooped low enough to expose the tops of her breasts and yet concealed more than it lay bare, was edged with fragile lace that reflected a stark white in the moonglow. She had had no time to fuss with her hair, to produce the now fashionable ringlets or the sweep of curls that would end, at the nape, in a single netted braid.

  Instead she had brushed it for nearly thirty minutes, bringing to its black sheen a faint hint of blue that rippled when she turned her head. She then dropped it coyly, and with a glint of humor, over her shoulders to mask her neckline. There were no other adornments. She wanted to let her heritage and her own natural attractiveness-she would never have called it beauty herself-assert themselves for her.

  She grinned suddenly.

  All she needed, she thought, was a fan to hold in front of her face to make her the proper coquette. And that, she added, was a guaranteed maneuver to drive Trevor Eagleton out of her life without apology.

  She leaned back for a moment and stared at the stars. With this one of her last evenings in San Francisco, she wondered if she would feel much pain when she bade farewell to him. Tomorrow would be spent in packing the trunks and satchels, seeing them off to the station so they would be ready for her departure on the seven-thirty train for Denver. There would be little time for reflection; no time at all for the wonders of Trevor's touch. She allowed, then, a brief eulogy of melancholy to sweep gently over her; but only a brief one. She would not allow herself to ruin this night simply because she was leaving soon. It would not, she told herself, be the end of the world. If she did nothing else tonight-and she shocked herself by feeling a warm flush climb from her neck-she would extract a promise from him to come to Wyoming. Even if it were only in passing. She would not lose him. Not quite so quickly, whe
n she had just begun to find him.

  The road twisted sharply and dipped, and she had to grab for the carriage's sides to keep from tumbling out of the seat into the one facing her. She was glad, then, that Trevor had not sent along a landau or a coach. She much preferred seeing what passed by her, feeling the suggestive caresses of the night wind sweep over her, and watching the steady shoulders of the driver as he guided the blacks skillfully across the ford of a narrow creek and up the adjacent slope to a wide plateau.

  And at the far end was Cliff House. And beyond it, the sea.

  * * *

  She remembered very little about the meal itself, or of the room in which she sat. She only knew that the dinner was served on platters and in bowls of meticulously engraved silver and gold, and the room was a muted extension of the service-elegant, cautiously so, and in complete command of itself. Unlike so many of the other places in which she had dined, this was neither garish nor ostentatious. It was more European than Californian, and Amanda accepted it as a silent tribute from the man with whom she dined.