These Golden Pleasures

by Valerie Sherwood

  The handkerchief she held up to the light that came in from the fanlight above the door bore the initials R. C.

  Rhodes Coulter.

  With a sob, she clenched it in her hands, and rage gave her strength. A wild moaning scream rose from her hurt throat as she staggered toward Joab Coulter’s door and slammed her fist against it, again and again, making the very timbers rock as pain splintered through her knuckles.

  The door flew open and Joab Coulter appeared, a maroon velvet dressing gown hastily thrown over his bony night-shirted figure—only to fall back at the half-dressed wild-eyed apparition which confronted him.

  “Your son—your son—raped me just now!” Roxanne gasped. And thrust the handkerchief toward him.

  Examining the handkerchief, he saw the initials. He looked at Roxanne, her crazily-angled wig and her torn dress which, before his appalled gaze, she snatched around her. He did not immediately notice that it was a torn ball gown. His face was very pale.

  “Rhodes,” he said dully.

  “Yes!” She clutched her hurt throat. “Rhodes!”

  Joab made a gesture as if to sweep the cobwebs from his eyes. He seemed lost in thought, standing there somewhat like a tall scarecrow, not fully comprehending, as he gazed at Roxanne’s shaking form. Gradually a great cloud gathered on his face.

  “Rhodes!” he roared. It was a cry of rage.

  As if in answer, the front door opened and Rhodes stood there, resplendent in his Confederate uniform. His face, cruelly scratched by the thorny branch, was streaked with blood. He glared at Roxanne—then, as if realizing her condition, his eyes widened.

  “What has happened?” he demanded.

  Fury overwhelmed her. “Don’t ask me what has happened!” she cried hoarsely. “You know what you did! You knew I wouldn’t give in to you like Mary Bridey and so you hid on the stairs and almost killed me to work your cruel way on me!”

  “Rhodes,” cut in Gavin’s voice behind them, “is this true?” And Roxanne swung around to see a horrified little group standing on the stairs: Gavin in street clothes, looking aghast; Mrs. Hollister wearing a little nightcap; Ella and Jane in shapeless cotton wrappers, looking awed. Lizzie was nowhere to be seen; she slept soundly. Greaves, sleepily pulling on a jacket, was just coming down the hall from the dining room.

  “Of course it’s not true,” snapped Rhodes. “An over-eager wench has torn her clothes and set up an alarm to get herself a husband, can’t you see that?”

  Anger so engulfed Roxanne that she felt dizzy and weak from it. She felt as if her head would melt. She raised her arm to strike him down, to wipe the lie from the cruel mouth that had uttered it. Even as she did, he caught her by the wrist and said in a soft savage voice, “What devil’s game are you playing, Roxanne? Don’t tempt me further. I’ve half a mind to thrash you now—don’t goad me into it!”

  His father’s voice interrupted him. “Where were you just now? And what’s that you’re wearing?”

  “Outside walking about,” said Rhodes irritably. “And as you know very well, it’s my grandfather’s Confederate uniform.”

  Roxanne clenched her hands. “He’s lying,” she gasped. “He—raped—me! And—I—want—him—charged!”

  Joab Coulter’s deepset eyes never left his son’s face. “Is it your intention to hang?” he roared. “Or do you mean to marry this woman?”

  Rhodes gave a bitter laugh that flicked Roxanne as if a whip had licked a raw place. “I’ve no intention of hanging, I can assure you. And as for marrying this woman, I had thought of it, but I’d not marry her now if hell froze over!”

  “You’ll do as I say!” howled Joab Coulter, and suddenly, as he took a step forward, he gasped and his big body sagged. Rhodes, leaping forward, caught him before he could fall to the floor.

  “Get the doctor, Greaves!” barked Rhodes. “This lying wench may well have killed him with her accusations!”

  The world blurred red before Roxanne’s eyes, but as she swayed, someone caught both her hands, held them firmly. It was Gavin; in a moment she saw his face swim toward her through the mist of her fury.

  “Roxanne,” he said softly. “Steady.” He held her there, while she shook. “Greaves, after you’ve called the doctor, bring Mr. Colfax,” called Gavin. As if from a great distance Roxanne heard the door close and Greaves’s hurrying feet clatter down the steps outside. “Get her some brandy,” muttered Gavin to Ella. “Quick!”

  Ella ran into the dining room and emerged with a cut-glass decanter and a glass into which she splashed some of the liquid. Gavin held it to Roxanne’s trembling lips. “Steady now,” he encouraged. “Don’t faint, Roxanne.”

  Roxanne felt the hot liquid bum down her throat. “I’m not going to faint,” she mumbled.

  “We should get you upstairs,” Gavin said. “Mrs. Hollister, now that Rhodes has taken Father into his bedroom, perhaps you could—?”

  Roxanne resisted Mrs. Hollister’s urging hand on her shoulder. “Do not try to dissuade me, Gavin,” she said grimly. “I am going to charge your brother with rape.”

  He shrugged. “That is up to you, Roxanne.”

  She was vaguely surprised that he did not defend Rhodes as he had before over Mary Bridey.

  “Go on upstairs with Mrs. Hollister,” he urged. “She’ll put you to bed.”

  Roxanne waved the housekeeper away. “There’s more you should know,” she said coldly. “I am not Mary Willis’s daughter. My name is Roxanne Rossiter, and my grandmother lived in as good a house as this one—better—before Sherman burned it to the ground on his March to the Sea!”

  Gavin stared at her. “Are you saying you impersonated Mary Willis’s daughter?”

  “She had no daughter. She died on the train coming here, and I took her ticket and the letter she was carrying from your father—I was desperate for employment.”

  Gavin looked surprised and oddly pleased. “I always thought you were . . . different,” he murmured. "But why tell me this now?”

  “Because it will all come out when the police get here.”

  “Ah, now,” he said thoughtfully. “Impersonation . . . theft ... You and Rhodes could end up in the same , jail.”

  “I don’t care!” she cried passionately. “He raped me, and I want him brought to justice!”

  Gavin seized her hand. He seemed magnificent tonight, triumphant in some strange way. As if he had jousted with devils . . . and won.

  “Trust me,” he whispered. “Say no more of this for now. My father’s in a bad way. I have to go to him.” He indicated the bedroom door. “But tomorrow I’ll see what’s to be done.”

  Roxanne bit back the violent words that rose to her lips, the demand that something be done now! Furious tears frosted her lashes.

  “Trust me,” he said again, in a compassionate voice, and pushed her gently toward the stairs.

  Roxanne sagged back against the newel post as the front door opened to admit the doctor, who lived only two doors away. Nodding to Gavin, he hurried in and bustled toward his patient’s door. When Gavin followed him into the bedroom, Roxanne moved heavily up the front stairs. Halfway up she heard the front door open again and paused to see another hastily dressed gentleman hurry in. She recognized him as John Colfax, Joab Coulter’s lawyer. She wondered if he were here to swear out a warrant for Rhodes’s arrest? Or perhaps to make marriage arrangements?

  Roxanne struggled up the stairs toward her room, clutching the long streamers of torn fabric about her. On the stair landing, which was awash with light from the gas lamps that had been lit, stood Clarissa in a peach satin dressing gown, her face very white.

  She recoiled at the sight of Roxanne.

  “I . . . heard,” she muttered. “And you were . . . wearing that?”

  Roxanne looked down dispassionately at the ruined gown. In the light of what had happened to her, wearing somebody else’s dress to a party seemed enormously inconsequential. “I wore it to the ball,” she said tersely. “I went in your place. You can dis
miss me for it.”

  But Clarissa’s mind was not on dismissal.

  “And you were attacked . . . wearing my dress?” The words were torn painfully from Clarissa.

  Suddenly Roxanne understood Clarissa’s surmise. Her own face went white and she swayed against the wall.

  Roxanne had gone to the ball in Clarissa’s place. And in Clarissa’s place she had been attacked. No wonder Rhodes was angry! He had been thwarted. If she had been Clarissa, he could have claimed he was drunk and gallantly offered to marry her at once. But she was a servant girl . . . one to whom he had been attracted, it was true, but a man in his position didn’t marry a servant.

  Fury so all-encompassing it shook her very being consumed Roxanne suddenly. And in that moment she swore that if she lived, she would get even with Rhodes. Someday, somehow, it would be done. She would bring him down.

  Her hatred of him gave her skin a kind of glow that kept her warm as she moved back to her room, but there she sank down weeping, exhausted. She was sure she was covered with bruises. But no wound she had suffered was half so great as the deep searing wound to her pride, to her self-esteem, and yes— although she would not at the moment admit it—to her heart.

  For Rhodes, who had held her heart in his keeping, had seized her, had used her roughly for his pleasure, taken her against her will—and without love. Without love . . . that hurt the most.

  She started at a knock on the door. It was Gavin.

  “Do you need anything?” he asked, through the door.

  She mumbled “No,” and he went away, even his walk sounding tired, dejected.

  Poor Gavin ... he had tried so hard to shield Rhodes, and now there was no longer any way to shield him. Tomorrow the world would know Rhodes for what he was. Tomorrow there would be police and questions and—she shuddered in horror—they would ask her things, personal things. She bent her head and sobbed. Rhodes had brought her to this! And to think, for a while she had loved him!

  Jane, looking sympathetic, brought up buckets of hot water, and Roxanne scrubbed herself mechanically, wincing as she touched bruises that already were darkening to purple blotches. Pulling on her coarse white cotton nightgown, Roxanne sank down onto her bed and hugged her shoulders miserably, shaking with a kind of cold that was not external. But she could not sleep.

  She kept going over and over in her mind the horrible events of the evening. How could Rhodes have been so vile?

  The sound of raised voices filtered through to her from downstairs, and she decided to sneak out to the landing to see what was going on. Had poor old Joab died? Were Gavin and Rhodes quarreling?

  She tiptoed barefoot down the stairs and stood in the shadows on the second-floor landing, listening.

  The men were standing outside Joab Coulter’s bedroom door: Rhodes and Gavin, their faces white; the lawyer, looking uneasy.

  “It’s a deathbed will, Rhodes,” cried Gavin. “Of course it will hold.”

  “My father can’t cut me off with a dollar!” cried Rhodes. “His fortune—this whole damned house—came to him from my mother! How dare he!”

  “There’s the matter of the young woman—” began the lawyer.

  But Rhodes jumped in with, “Damn the- young woman! Roxanne’s lying! Can’t you see that? She came here pretending to be Mary Willis’s daughter with this in mind—making one of us marry her!”

  Roxanne stiffened, her anger almost causing her breath to stop.

  “That’s not important now, Rhodes,” cried Gavin.

  “The devil it’s not!” shouted Rhodes.

  “The important thing is that father’s changed his will and left everything to me. Now I can—”

  “I told you, my father can’t do that! I’ll have my share back. I’ll have you in court, Gavin. I’ll break that will!”

  Gavin straightened, seemed to grow taller. His voice took on the chill of ice. “If you do, you’ll do it from jail,” he said silkily. “The girl Roxanne has complained against you. She says you violated her. Your life will be at stake if you’re brought to trial for it!”

  Angrily, Rhodes faced Gavin. “And who’ll help her bring her complaint? You, my brother? You, who always wanted to inherit the Line so you could have the pleasure of converting it to steam? Oh, I see it now— you two connived against me! You told her to rip her clothes and cry rape!”

  “You’re no brother of mine!” thundered Gavin in a fury. “And my father realized that at the last—that’s why he cut you out of his will!”

  Rhodes’s face was very white and strained. “No brother of yours? What do you mean by that?”

  Gavin’s voice had become a roar. “I say your mother cuckolded my father with her Irish groom, who was running from the law when he landed, on these shores!

  I say no Coulter blood flows in your veins! That’s what I say! That’s what I’ll tell the world if you try to break this deathbed will! And then I’ll see you jailed for what you've done to Roxanne!”

  Rhodes leaped forward and grabbed his brother by the throat. The muscles in his powerful neck corded, and the broadcloth over his shoulders bulged as he shook Gavin vengefully. “Brother you may not be,” he said through clenched teeth. “But your blood will run nicely red across this carpet for saying it!”

  The lawyer grasped Rhodes’s arms, crying at him to desist, but with a fierce gesture Rhodes shook him off. Gavin swung at him and missed. Then Rhodes flung Gavin from him so violently that Gavin hit his head against the far wall and slithered down it, insensible.

  At that moment Rhodes, standing in the hall below Roxanne, presented a perfect target for her. She grabbed the nearest object, lifted her arm and threw a heavy bust of Plato down at Rhodes.

  Rhodes looked up and saw her. For a moment, hell looked out of his eyes. Suddenly, with the quickness of a cat, he ducked as the heavy marble flashed through the air and crashed to the floor beside him.

  “Hellcat!” he flung at her and strode out through the front door, slamming it behind him with such force that a pane of the fanlight broke and the glass shattered on the floor.

  “He’s a violent man, violent,” said the doctor, shaking his head.

  “All the Coulters are violent,” the lawyer said grimly, turning to survey Gavin’s inert form. “Of course, it’s possible that, as Gavin says, Rhodes isn’t a Coulter. Come, you’d better see to Gavin. He’s taken a pretty heavy blow on the back of the head where he connected with that wall.”

  With tear-blinded eyes, Roxanne staggered back to her room. Hellcat, he had called her, this man who such a short time before had held her trapped in his arms, exploring all her secrets.

  May he rot in hell! she thought vengefully, and the tears that she had managed to hold back before burst forth in a shower of grief, rage, heartbreak and humiliation.

  Chapter 17

  In the morning Roxanne got her bruised body out of bed, donned her gray suit and went downstairs intending to get the police herself. At the foot of the stairs, she met Mrs. Hollister, who was wealing a black dress, her eyes red with weeping. The plump little housekeeper blocked Roxanne’s way determinedly, saying she didn’t know where Roxanne could be going at this time of morning.

  Roxanne said crisply that she was going for the police, since no one else had.

  Oh, dear, said Mrs. Hollister, distressed. And at a time like this, with a death in the house. Couldn’t it wait?

  Roxanne gave her a withering look.

  Mrs. Hollister took a deep breath and said smoothly that with Roxanne so upset last night, she had not mentioned it, but she herself had heard a cat crying outside just after midnight. Thinking it might have been run over by a carriage, she had gone downstairs and out the servants’ entrance to look for it. When she had returned she must have forgotten to lock the door, for white everyone was in an uproar downstairs she had gone back to check, and had found it standing open.

  Roxanne gave her a stubborn look. “If the servants’ door was standing open, it was because Rhodes left it so in
his hurry to get out and rush in again by the front door!”

  “Oh, no, that couldn’t have been,” corrected Mrs. Hollister quickly, her eyes very wide and blank. “I heard all that noise downstairs, and I ran to the window of the second-floor drawing room before I went downstairs. I myself saw Rhodes coming down the street.”

  Roxanne, remembering now the servants’ entrance had been locked and bolted against her, felt sick. But she knew that she was beaten. The police—everyone, in fact—would prefer to believe that person or persons unknown had slipped into the house and attacked her and slipped away again—rather than have to charge a prominent citizen’s son with the crime.

  Mrs. Hollister gave her a pleading look, her lips quivering.

  Suddenly Roxanne understood. It was loyalty she was seeing, family loyalty! All those lovely things in Mrs. Hollister’s room. The lingering looks Mrs. Hollister had been wont to give her employer, and now her deep black mourning garb. Mrs. Hollister had been Joab Coulter’s mistress. He had given her those things! No wonder she had added a Mrs. to her name, to make her seem more respectable. Perhaps Joab had no longer desired her when he grew old and his rheumatism bothered him, but he had kept her well.

  And she had been grateful! Naturally the loyalty and gratitude she felt toward Joab had spilled over onto his sons. That explained why she had been so anxious to get rid of Mary Bridey, so eager to cover up anything that went wrong. Loyalty—loyalty to her lover!

  Roxanne stared at Mrs. Hollister for a speechless moment, comprehending all that. It explained, too, how the housekeeper had felt about her. Mrs. Hollister had wanted Roxanne to marry well, but at a secondary level, not in the Coulter family. And to bring charges against one of the Coulters was, to someone like Mrs. Hollister, unthinkable.

  Roxanne swept past the housekeeper and almost collided with Greaves, who was carrying a large black funeral wreath to affix to the door. “I will send for my things,” she flung over her shoulder.