by Jo Goodman
"I will never regret it," he told her softly. He turned his head so that his mouth brushed Katy's temple. "You have not failed me. If you were not such an innocent, you would understand that I've failed you."
"I am not innocent," she objected. "I told you—"
"I know," said Victor. "Logan Marshall."
Katy simply nodded. There was nothing to be gained by discussing Logan. She told Victor everything before they were married, and he said it made no difference.
"Still," Victor went on, "you are an innocent. One night of passion does not mean you are—"
"Please... don't..." Katy's face flamed, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the humiliating images that came almost immediately to mind. "I do not want to think about it. Please don't make me."
Victor slipped an arm around Katy's shoulders and drew her close. He liked the fullness of her breasts against his chest. He could feel her nipples hardening through the material of her nightgown. Her eyes dropped away from his, and he understood that she was embarrassed by her own response to him. There was so much she did not understand; so much that he could still teach her. "I have an idea," he said. "We will leave the city in the morning. I have a summer home north of here along the Hudson. We can stay there for a few weeks—a real honeymoon, spending time in each other's pockets. That is, if you don't mind leaving the theatre for a while."
"I told you I was not going back on the stage if you married me."
"You will change your mind again. I am not asking that of you."
"It's what I want to do," she reminded him. The summer home sounded wonderful to her and she told him so. Weeks away from the city and the theatre would help her adjust to the idea that she was not going to return to acting. It would help her relegate Logan Marshall to the back of her mind, and she could concentrate on the person dearest to her in all the world. "I do love you, Victor," she said quietly. "You believe me, don't you?"
"I believe you." And he did. Victor was certain that in Katy's own way she loved him. He certainly loved her. It was a bitter irony that he had not been able to consummate their marriage. "I am sorry about this evening," he said gruffly. And the two others before it, he added silently.
"Oh, God, don't apologize. It is not your fault. I am so nervous about all of it, and you have been so patient, so understanding. This is not easy for me. I cannot be a very good partner for you."
But that was not it at all, or at least not all of it. Certainly Katy was nervous, but Victor had found her shyness endearing. It had excited him, made him eager to have her in his bed. That she should want to honor the vows of their marriage was more than Victor had hoped for when he had first proposed. Up until the moment they were in bed together, Victor thought Katy would change her mind. Yet she had not. She followed his lead with sweet passion, letting him touch her, explore her. There were moments when he saw the fear in her deep brown eyes and his caresses gentled. Her fear was a challenge, something that could be turned aside because he loved her so much he ached with it. When he touched her he was erasing Logan Marshall. It troubled him that he was unable to wipe away the most intimate mark Logan had made on Katy.
"We will go to the country," he said again. "It will be wonderful there, you'll see."
"It is wonderful wherever you are."
The most amazing thing to Victor was that she meant it. She truly meant it.
* * *
"Is he here?" Christian asked the steward at the Union Club.
There was no need to ask who 'he' was. The steward pointed to the wing-backed leather chair in one corner of the reading room. Logan was seated there, a leg propped negligently over one arm of the chair. His foot dangled, occasionally bumping the dark maroon leather. Even from the archway across the room the arrhythmic sound was distracting. Apparently other members had thought so, too. Logan was alone.
"Jenny is worried about you," Christian said when he reached his brother's side. "I promised her I'd bring you home."
Logan smiled crookedly, scooped up the bottle of whiskey at his side, and drank directly from the open neck. He held it out to Christian when he was done. "No? Oh, well. I would appreciate the company though. Don't feel much like going home."
"Jenny showed me the evening paper," he said patiently. "She is concerned that you might be taking Miss Dakota's marriage badly. It would seem that she's right."
"Not taking it badly, brother dear," Logan denied, lifting the bottle as if in a toast. "Celebrating a narrow escape. Almost offered the bitch marriage myself. God, what a mistake that would have been. I let myself forget, just for a moment, what she was... who she was." He laughed without any joy in the sound. The bottle slipped a little in his gasp. "You cannot imagine how good I am feeling now, Christian. I am the luckiest man alive."
Christian relieved his brother of the bottle, grabbed Logan's wrist and pulled him to his feet. "You can tell me about it on the way home," he said, supporting Logan carefully. He motioned to the steward and between them they got Logan out of the Union Club and into the waiting carriage.
Somewhere between Seventeenth Street and Worth Square the luckiest man alive passed out.
* * *
Ria Donovan heard door that connected her bedroom with her husband's open slowly.
Tucked under her pillow, her small, porcelain-white hands turned cold and clammy. She closed her eyes, hoping that Michael would think she was asleep and decide against bothering her. It had never stopped him before, but perhaps this time...
Michael stubbed his toe on a three-legged table. He swore softly but vigorously. She had done it on purpose, he suspected. Ria was always rearranging the furniture in her room so that when he came to her at night he was forever stumbling into something. It never thwarted him; it only made him angry. It made him angry now.
Lighting the oil lamp at Ria's bedside, Michael held it so a circle of yellow light fell on his wife's face. The light did unflattering things to Ria's pale skin, making it appear sallow. Michael held it there for a few moments, watching her carefully before he set the lamp down again. "I know you're awake, Ria. It's no good trying to fool me. I think you know that if I want you, I will take you in your sleep. Hell, the way you respond to me, I probably would not know the difference. It might be more enjoyable."
Michael waited, hoping for a flash of temper, something that would spark Ria's green eyes or make her thick head of red hair suit the mood. Nothing. In spite of her coloring, there was no fire in Ria Monroe Donovan. That knowledge further angered Michael. She was a sham, he thought. Just as their entire marriage was a sham. In the west wing his father was making love to the woman Michael wanted in his bed. He damned Ria for not being that woman.
"What do you want?" Ria asked tiredly, proud of herself for the convincing calm in her voice. "It is very late."
"It is very early," he said, pointing to the gold leaf clock on Ria's chiffonier. "Just past five. I couldn't sleep so I went to the library to get some papers I have been working on. Imagine my surprise when I almost bumped into Father in the hallway. He was carrying a middle-of-the-night feast for him and his bride. I think they both worked up an appetite."
Ria sat up, moving away from Michael as he sat down on the edge of the bed. Her back was flush to the headboard and her eyes darted over him warily. "Do not be crude, Michael."
Michael gave no indication that he had even heard her soft admonition. "You will be interested to know that he and my dear stepmama are leaving in the morning for the Willows. They will be staying at the summer house for the rest of the month."
"How lovely for them," said Ria softly. "Your father deserves some happiness, Michael."
One of Michael's light eyebrows kicked up. The corner of his mouth lifted in a smoothly cynical smile. "What's this? A change of heart? I thought you and I were of a single mind where Father was concerned. Has Miss Dakota been able to make you see things differently so soon? Don't forget that she's an actress, Ria. I doubt that you will ever be up to her every trick."
"My God, I cannot believe what I am hearing. What happened to the woman who harangued Father with tales about the gold digger?"
"I did not know her then," she said quietly. Then, in her own defense, she added, "And I have never harangued anyone. I was merely repeating things you had told me about her. I followed her career the same as you and Victor, and I read the same things you read in the paper. Without knowing Miss Dakota it is quite easy to assume that she's only interested in furthering her position in the theatre."
"Or in society."
Ria pretended she hadn't heard. "I am merely revising my opinion, Michael, based on what I have seen since she's come to live here."
"I had not realized you had become such fast friends."
"Now you are deliberately mishearing me. We are not fast friends, nor is it likely that we will ever be close. But I think I can treat her with some civility and weather the social scandal of your father's marriage. I admit it is a relief that she is not going to return to the play."
"You really do not understand what Father's marriage means to us, do you?"
"I don't see that it should mean anything to us."
"Money, Ria. It means money." He saw her blank look and clenched his hands to keep from slapping her. "I was the heir, my darling," he said sweetly. Too sweetly. "Father's bound to leave Katy some part of the fortune whether she wants it or not."
"You know I have no head for business. Surely there will still be enough money for us."
"As you said, you have no head for business. You spend more on clothing in one month than Miss Dakota earned in a year. The upkeep of this house is enormous. The socials... the appearances..." He waved his hand dismissingly. "None of that is the point. The point is, Ria, that I have earned the right to the fortune and I am not going to let my father's whore-wife take any part of it from me."
"Michael! Please, have a care what you say! If someone were to hear you, well, you don't want your father to know how you're feeling, do you?"
"My father's not the fool you are. He has to know I'm feeling murderous toward that bitch. I have never made any secret that I did not want him involved with her." Michael stood, jammed his hands in the pockets of his velvet smoking jacket, and paced the floor in front of the fireplace. The bones of his face were set in harsh relief, giving his handsome features the stamp of cruelty. "They could have a child. Had you thought of that? My father could have a child to that jade, and I would have a brother or sister. There would be another heir. Katy is young, young enough to bear my father a dozen children before he dies. All of them heirs to everything I have worked for at my father's side. I won't share it, Ria. I won't."
He sounded exactly like the spoiled only child he was, Ria thought. She wisely kept her thoughts to herself. "All right, Michael," she said, hoping to placate him. "Perhaps if you talked to your father, discussed your concerns, he would listen to you. They seem legitimate concerns to me. After all, you've worked with your father for years now. You have a stake in the store and all the Donovan enterprises."
Michael stopped pacing abruptly. He turned and looked at his wife, his blue eyes narrowing slightly. Ria was a diminutive woman with perfectly proportioned features. Everything about her was dainty. At one time Michael thought Ria's china smooth complexion, rosebud mouth, and hourglass figure held the very essence of femininity. He had been strongly attracted to her, wooed and courted her, wed her, and discovered that he didn't love her. Sometimes lately, especially when he compared her to Katy Dakota, it seemed to Michael that he even hated his wife. During seven years of marriage he had asked only one thing of her and she had repeatedly failed him. "I want a child," he said flatly, emotionlessly. "You are going to have to bear me a child, Ria. Short of killing Father or his wife, that is the only way I see to regain an equitable share of what is rightfully mine."
Ria's mouth was as dry as cotton. Swallowing was difficult. She could not bear to look at her husband, knowing that he would see the fear and revulsion in her eyes and ridicule her for it. In a low voice she repeated what Michael already knew. "Dr. Turner says I should not try any longer to have children. Another pregnancy..." Her throat closed and tears glistened in her eyes. "Please, Michael, I do not think I could stand another miscarriage. Even if I survived it, I do not think I could live with the loss. Four babies. We have had four babies, and I couldn't carry any of them to term. I don't want to go through it again."
"Is it the thought of having a child that terrifies you or what you have to do to get one?" he asked coldly.
"Don't say things like that. I have always done my duty by you, and I have never objected to your mistresses. Perhaps you have a bastard child somewhere that we could raise. I swear to you, Michael, I could love your son by another woman."
"Touching as your offer is, darling, I have no bastards and do not intend that I should get any. I want a son by my wife, a legitimate heir. My father would accept nothing less and neither would I." Michael tugged at the sash of his quilted jacket. "We may as well begin," he said, shrugging out of it. "There is no telling how long it will take, although as I recall, you conceive easily."
"Oh, God." Ria hugged a pillow to her breast as if it were a shield. "Don't make me, Michael. Please do not make me."
Michael approached the bed. "Don't fight me, Ria, and I promise I won't hurt you more than necessary. You suffer more because of your own cold nature than from anything I do to you."
There was no escape. Ria closed her eyes and felt her husband's weight as a depression on the mattress. The pillow was taken from her, then the blankets. He caught her wrist and drew her toward him. She felt bile rise in her throat as her palm touched his bare chest. He was so large. The thick matting of hair on his chest reminded her of an animal. With his clothes on Ria thought her husband was the most beautiful man to walk the earth. Naked, he repulsed her. Clothed or unclothed, she was afraid of him. "The light," she whispered. "Please turn down the light."
"Yes," he said. In the dark he could forget who she was. She could be Marilyn or Carole or Dawn or Rochelle. In the dark she could be Katy Dakota. "Yes," he repeated huskily, reaching across Ria to turn back the wick. "Let me touch you in the dark."
* * *
The Willows was a thirty-room, white frame house with a wide, open porch that spanned two sides and a rose trellis with an eastern exposure that climbed to the second floor. It was not what Katy had imagined when Victor spoke of his summer home. An entourage of servants preceded them, opening up the house and airing the rooms and the linens. By the time Victor and Katy arrived it was as if the house had never stood vacant.
The journey to the Willows was accomplished by boat. Victor was appalled to learn that Katy had never gone any distance on water before. He promised to take her to Europe. She would rather see California, she said. That was fine with him. He stopped short of saying that he would sail off the edge of the world with her or for her. Katy would not want to know how hopelessly in love he was.
A canopy of sandbar willows shaded the path from the river landing to the house. They grew in a thicket along the riverfront to almost thirty feet in height as they neared the house.
"Roses are blooming," said Victor.
"Yes," Katy sighed, slipping her arm in the crook of his. The trellis was covered with pink and white petals. "Aren't they beautiful?" She never knew he was talking about the ones in her cheeks.
Victor took Katy riding that first afternoon. He soon discovered she was no horsewoman. But she was game; he would give her that. She would have taken the biggest stallion in his stable if he had not been there to stop her. He gave her a gentle bay mare named Adelphia, and he almost laug
hed out loud when he saw her relief. They rode on trails along the Hudson, sometimes dipping near the water, sometimes rising far above it so they could see miles of the valley winding at their feet.
Katy learned that her husband was a vigorous, physical man. It was clear that he loved riding, enjoyed being out of doors, and found great pleasure in the activity. Which made it very curious, Katy thought, that Victor led such a sedentary existence in the city. Katy found herself watching him avidly, sharing his pleasure and enjoying his company. He had a handsome smile and he turned it in her direction often. The laugh lines around his light blue eyes would deepen when he was amused. Once, impulsively, as they were standing on the crest of a rocky incline overlooking the valley, Katy reached for his hand and lifted it to her heart, holding it there in the cup of her palms.
Victor's age had never been the issue to Katy that it was to her husband, but looking back on that afternoon Katy realized it was that moment on the rocks, when she took his hand, that she ceased to be aware of the years separating them altogether.
That night they crawled into bed, both a little stiff and sore from their afternoon riding. They shared a look, an understanding, and several minutes of healthy, self-mocking, yet loving laughter before they fell asleep simply holding one another.
* * *
Logan scooped his young nephew off the dock and ruffled his hair. Holland protested loudly, giggled, and gave his uncle several smacking kisses when requested.
"Are you sure you don't want me to keep him here?" asked Logan, winking at Jenny over the top of Holland's tousled head. "I would take very good care of him."
Jenny pretended to think it over while Holland looked at her with pleading eyes. "No, I would rather have my imp with me. You'd take him to the paper one day and lose him in that office of yours. Filed under B for boy."
"If I bothered to file him at all." He gave Holland a quick kiss and handed him over to his mother.
Jenny set him on the ground and placed his hand firmly in the hand of his nanny. "Go with Miss Reade now, darling. She'll show you where we are going to stand to wave good-bye to Uncle Logan." She bit back her smile as her son tried running for the gangway, only to be held back by his nanny. "Miss Reade is going to be very good for him," she said, turning back to Logan and her husband.