“That’s not important, and it’s not my place to discuss it anyway. I tried to warn you, Rachel, and you wouldn’t listen to me. God knows what will happen now.”
“I’ll tell you what is going to happen!” Rachel retorted. “I’m going to pack my things and leave this house!”
“You ignored my first warning, Rachel. Now listen, please, to my second. Don’t go.”
Frustration displaced the blood in Rachel’s veins and coursed through her in its stead. “Surely you don’t expect me to stay now!”
Molly arched one eyebrow. “Where is there for you to go?” she asked, with shattering logic. “There are no steamers at this hour, and if you turn to Jonas Wilkes, the results will be tragic.”
There was Tent Town, for one place; she could go there. And the saloon, for another.
Frantically, Rachel surveyed the stacks of rich clothing billowing all around the room. For the first time in her life, she knew the burden treasured possessions could be.
“Well?” prodded Molly.
“I don’t know,” lied Rachel.
But hours later, when at last the house was quiet, Rachel gathered as many clothes as she could carry and crept out into the cool, welcoming night.
• • •
Because Mrs. Hammond had gone to bed early, Jonas answered the door himself. The set of Griffin Fletcher’s face put him instantly on guard, but the day had been a rewarding one and the triumph of it sustained him.
“Hello, Griffin,” he said affably.
Griffin brushed past him and stood, glowering, seeming to darken the entry hall with his rage. “Where is she, Jonas?”
Jonas smiled cautiously. “Where is whom?” he asked.
Swiftly, Griffin’s hands grasped the lapels of Jonas’s smoking jacket. A muscle constricted in his jaw, relaxed again. Then, slowly, Griffin released his hold and stepped back.
Jonas’s laugh was dangerous, and he knew it. It was also involuntary, born of his hatred and his need to see Griffin Fletcher brought to his knees. “Rachel!” he said. “You think Rachel is tucked into my bed, don’t you, Griffin?”
The torment in Griffin’s dark eyes was a source of immense satisfaction. “If she is, I’ll kill you.”
“Then I can draw my next breath without worrying. She isn’t here.”
Griffin’s stormy gaze swung to the stairway, and a second later, he followed it, taking the gleaming marble stairs three at a time.
Jonas gripped the newel post at the base of the stairs and breathed a silent, unlikely prayer of gratitude. Then he laughed and shouted with relish, “You’re making a fool of yourself, Griffin—again!”
Overhead, he heard doors being thrust—or kicked—open. The sound brought back bittersweet memories. You won’t find Rachel here, Jonas thought, with relief. And that’s fortunate, by the looks of things.
Presently, Griffin came downstairs again. He didn’t have the grace to look sheepish. “Jonas, if you have any idea where she is, you’d better tell me. Now.”
Jonas knew the mind of his enemy; formidable as it was, it was also plagued with a sort of noble naiveté. Griffin would consider the obvious possibility briefly, and then dismiss it in disbelief.
Acting on instinct, Jonas offered it aloud, in ingenuous, helpful tones. “I think she might be at Becky’s.”
Griffin’s conjecture was clear in his eyes, and so was the doubt that displaced it. Jonas had a hard time hiding his gratification as he said a cordial good-night, but once he’d closed and locked the door, it broke through in a shout of laughter.
Chapter Eleven
Rachel lay, tense and sleepless, in the bed that had so recently been her mother’s. The room was locked, and there was a sturdy chair propped beneath the doorknob; but the terrible, consuming fear still snarled at the edges of Rachel’s mind.
It was very late, but the raucous piano music and coarse laughter coming from downstairs showed no signs of waning. Worse, seductive feminine giggles and the tread of heavy boots sounded in the hallway, and bedsprings creaked constantly in the room next door.
Rachel was totally miserable. In fact, if she hadn’t been mortally afraid of encountering a drunken, amorous lumberjack in the hallway or on the stairs, she would have scampered back to Griffin Fletcher’s house and babbled whatever apologies were necessary.
She blushed hotly in the darkness. Why was it that his kiss was so fresh and clear in her mind, while his savage cruelty was fading? Why had her body been so drawn to his, even as her proud spirit was repelled?
Rachel allowed herself to imagine his hands touching her breasts and stomach, his hard, fierce frame pressing down on hers. Desperate, aching need rose in response.
Had Griffin Fletcher been there with her in that dark, haunted room, she would have surrendered to him willingly, even eagerly. Assuming he wanted her.
She turned, punching the goosedown pillows angrily. Damn him! Damn his condemnation and his insults!
He’d made his brutal opinions clear enough, and the raw desire she’d sensed in him stemmed from those false ideas, rather than any worthy, human feeling.
Tears slid down Rachel’s cheeks as she closed her eyes, burrowed down in the bed, and let tomorrow’s picnic absorb all her thoughts. Eventually she slept.
The brothel did not seem nearly so intimidating in the bright light of morning. The lumberjacks were apparently gone, the piano music was stilled, and the “girls” were asleep behind closed doors.
Rachel washed, put on the planned white silk blouse and black sateen skirt, and took special pains arranging her hair. She was humming when she walked purposefully into the tiny kitchen tucked away at the back of the first floor.
She glanced at the door and smiled. To think she’d been cowering there only the night before, humbly seeking sanction in her own building!
The gentle black woman, Mamie, came in as Rachel was pouring a cup of coffee.
“Don’t you look nice, Miss Rachel!”
Rachel smiled. She’d never felt so good about the way she looked or the person she was. “Thank you,” she said.
Mamie began to gather pots and pans, making a great, cheerful clatter in the sunny warmth of the kitchen. Soon eggs were frying in a cast-iron skillet, and bread was toasting in the oven.
Rachel felt ravenous. She was eating with as much restraint and decorum as she could manage when Fawn Nighthorse, the Indian girl she remembered from Tent Town, came shuffling in, clad in an oversized flannel nightgown, and stared, open-mouthed, at the newest resident of Becky’s Place.
“Good morning!” chimed Rachel, pleased.
Fawn peered at her, squinting her bright brown eyes and then widening them again. “Rachel?” she whispered at last.
Rachel nodded, then giggled at the wild disbelief playing in Fawn’s swollen face.
Fawn crept to the first available chair and fell into it, shaking her head. Her midnight-colored hair glimmered on her shoulders, trailed over her breasts and past her elbows. “Does Griffin know you’re here?” she asked, in a soft, awe-stricken voice.
Rachel bristled. “No. It’s none of his business!”
Fawn tossed a grateful look in Mamie’s direction as the enormous, suddenly anxious woman set a mug of hot coffee before her. When her eyes linked with Rachel’s again, however, they snapped with warning. “If Griff finds you here, he’ll blister your bustle!”
The very thought stirred depths of outrage Rachel had never experienced before.
But Fawn held up a slender brown hand before she could protest. “Don’t even say it—I know what you’re thinking. But if anybody would dare, Griffin would. You’d better not test the theory, Rachel.”
Even though Rachel smiled with unshakable confidence, the certainty in Fawn’s tone had found its mark. Before she could frame an answer, however, the kitchen door swung open and Jonas Wilkes appeared, splendidly dressed in a tailored gray suit.
As his golden eyes connected with Fawn’s dark brown gaze, an intangible, soundless
explosion seemed to rock the room. In its shuddering aftermath, Jonas’s charged glance slid to Rachel’s face and was instantly genial. “So my guess was correct, Urchin. You were hiding here all the time. Ready?”
Rachel was so anxious to escape the taut hostility in that kitchen that she scrambled to her feet without answering, nearly overturning her half-filled coffee cup in the process. Her toes and arches ached inside the soft velvet slippers she’d found among her mother’s things.
Fawn rose slowly to her feet, her eyes on Jonas’s composed, admiring face. “Now, just a minute, Jonas… .”
He surveyed Fawn’s flannel-covered frame with polite disinterest. “It’s good to see that you’re recovering so rapidly, Miss Nighthorse,” he said. And then, frowning, he touched the neat row of stitches in her lower lip. “I hope your progress continues.”
Fawn paled—Rachel would have sworn to it—beneath the cinnamon smoothness of her skin. Then she sank silently back into her chair.
Jonas nodded slightly, with an air of distracted chivalry, as though he were confirming something the Indian woman had said.
Rachel was unnerved by the whole situation, sensing that it held meanings as deep as Puget Sound itself, but when Jonas offered his arm and smiled at her, she thrust aside the vague misgivings she felt and accompanied him out of the kitchen, through the deserted saloon, and into the bright, fragrant glow of the morning.
“How did you guess that I was here?” she asked, as she settled herself into the carriage seat across from Jonas.
He shrugged. “No one can remain in the same house with Griffin Fletcher for long, Urchin. He’s fundamentally obnoxious, you know.”
“I do know,” she said, ruefully. “I was wearing one of the dresses you gave me—a beautiful pink taffeta—and he exploded.”
For a moment, Jonas looked as though he might laugh, but then a guarded look came into his face. “What did he say?”
Just the memory made Rachel blush profusely. “He—he implied that I was following my mother’s trade,” she said, leaving out an account of the bruising, hungry kiss.
Jonas shook his head sadly. “Don’t let that upset you, Rachel. Griffin sees most women in pretty much the same way.”
Rachel was still digesting this information when Jonas’s carriage drew to a stop in front of the stark, white-frame church. Horses, some standing alone and others hitched to buggies or wagons, were tethered to the sturdy picket fence, and men and women stood in small groups, chatting in subdued, Sabbath Day voices.
Rachel noticed immediately—and with singular annoyance—that the stylish ladies of the community had separated themselves from the calico-clad women of Tent Town. Subtle glances swept in her direction from the privileged; frank stares came from the others.
Rachel lifted her chin and smiled winningly at the dapper man whose arm she held.
The interior of the church was rustic, but spotlessly clean. There was an organ, and there were leather-bound hymnals resting neatly, at two-foot intervals, on the rough-hewn pine-board pews.
Jonas guided Rachel into a seat near the door and took his place beside her. With a wicked and quite endearing grin, he whispered, “If it’s one of his hellfire and damnation days, we can make a run for it.”
Rachel smiled at the image that suggestion brought to her mind, but she was looking forward to hearing Field Hollister preach, knowing instinctively that the experience would be memorable.
A plump, elderly woman began to labor over the organ keys, and as the parishioners straggled in from the churchyard, the canvas-dwellers, as well as those who boasted solid houses, continued to stare at Rachel.
But when a fearsome glower formed in Jonas’s features, the scrutiny came to a swift, if petulant, halt.
The organist’s fervent, if slightly discordant, voice rose in a rousing rendition of a normally somber hymn, and the congregation joined in shyly. Some knew the words, while others riffled quickly through their songbooks in search.
Field Hollister rose as the last self-conscious notes fell away, looking quietly magnificent in his neat, shabby suit and spotless collar. His eyes swept over the congregation, catching only briefly on Jonas’s slightly upturned face, but pausing with disconcerting amazement on Rachel’s.
There was a slight catch in his voice as he wrenched his attention away and began the fine, sensitive sermon Rachel had expected.
Rachel was moved by his gentle, compelling words, but she was also relieved when the service ended. Field’s eyes had strayed to her face several times during the sermon, and each time she had seen a scolding look in their azure depths.
Now, to her profound discomfort, Field was standing at the church’s open doors, greeting his congregation warmly as they passed.
Rachel would have given anything to slip by him unnoticed, but that was impossible. Jonas had stopped in the aisle to converse with a portly, gray-haired man, and all the other worshipers had departed in the interim.
“Where have you been?” Field asked directly, in a sharp whisper. “Griffin is half crazy with worry!”
“Griffin is more than half crazy,” Rachel retorted, desperate to defuse the confrontation.
Field’s gaze found Jonas and glinted with sky-blue fury, and his voice was still low. “Rachel, you weren’t—you didn’t—”
Rachel blushed so hard that it hurt. “Of course I didn’t!” she hissed.
The minister, averting his eyes for a moment, sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that we looked everywhere—”
“Except my mother’s saloon,” interrupted Rachel, impatient and self-conscious.
Field touched her arm gently. “You’re all right, that’s the important thing. I’m glad—”
“Of what?” demanded Jonas, suddenly.
Something terrible gleamed in Field’s eyes. “Did you enjoy my sermon, Jonas?” he countered. “If I’d known you were going to be here, I would have chosen a different text entirely.”
Jonas’s smile again seemed fixed. “You did fine, Reverend. Now, if you’ll excuse us…”
Field shook his head in some deep frustration and turned away, and Jonas’s grasp on Rachel’s arm, almost painful a moment before, slackened as he led her graciously outside.
Preparations for the picnic were well under way in the spacious, grassy lot behind the church and the tiny cottage Rachel knew was the parsonage.
Small children played the quiet, restrained games that were deemed suitable for the sabbath, while well-dressed women in broad-brimmed bonnets spread colored tablecloths on the warm soft ground. The men smoked and clung together in tight little groups, as though they were braced for some violent invasion. The subdued, shabby populace of Tent Town gathered at a suitable distance.
Across the breach, ragged children watched the prosperous ladies take pies and cakes and chicken and ham from their baskets, and their small, scrubbed faces were bewildered and full of yearning.
Rachel knew, even as she folded her crisp sateen skirts to sit on the blanket Jonas had spread for her, that she would have no appetite.
Jonas’s voice severed her thoughts gently. “What is it, Rachel?”
Rachel lowered her head, pretending great interest in the folds of her skirt. “Those children over there,” she whispered brokenly, knowing full-well the gnawing emptiness they endured, an emptiness that had little, if anything, to do with food. “We have so much, and they have nothing.”
Jonas, who was lying on his side on the blanket, his head propped up on one hand, reached out to lift her chin with the other. “Suppose we remedy the situation, Urchin? Will you enjoy the day then?”
Bewildered and hopeful, Rachel nodded.
Jonas bounded to his feet and moved from one bright picnic blanket to another, speaking in charming undertones to the occupants. Almost magically, the bounty began to move from one side of society to the other. Blushing matrons carried generous shares of their food to the startled, somewhat suspicious recipients, and while the two groups did not really
blend, they did draw closer together.
Rachel’s step was light as she thrust most of Mrs. Hammond’s fried chicken into the fray, along with a cherry pie and half a chocolate cake.
Field Hollister intercepted her as she walked back to rejoin an amused Jonas.
“Did I really see this happen?” he asked, smiling in amazement.
Rachel shrugged. “It was Jonas’s idea, Field.”
Field looked pleasantly skeptical. “I think you have a remarkable effect on our Jonas Wilkes, my dear.”
Rachel laughed warmly and shook her head, but the words she was planning to say died suddenly in her throat. Griffin Fletcher was striding toward her, his face pale and stiff with rage.
Hoping to find a defender, she looked imploringly to Field. But his arms were folded and his kind eyes seemed to be saying, “I told you so.” Rachel turned, in desperation, to appeal to Jonas.
The blanket where he’d lain, only moments before, was empty. Jonas was nowhere in sight.
Rachel drew closer to Field, frightened and all too conscious of the hush that had fallen over the picnic grounds.
“Don’t you dare make a scene here!” she hissed with bravado, as Griffin came to a forbidding halt approximately two feet away.
Griffin reached out and took Rachel in a painless but inescapable grasp. His voice was ominously low. “Fair enough,” he said. “Might I suggest a little conference over by that willow tree?”
Rachel, following his gaze, thought the tree in question was rather too far away, situated, as it was, on the far side of a murky, moss-strewn pond. “Well—”
“It’s that or a drama this town will never forget,” he said reasonably, a false smile twisting his lips.
Rachel tried to look calm as Dr. Fletcher half-dragged her through the deep grass, around the edge of the pond, and behind the sheltering branches of the willow.
There, he suddenly took her shoulders in a hard grip and thrust her backward, so that she could feel the rough bark of the tree through her blouse and thin camisole.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.
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