Fletcher's Woman

by Linda Lael Miller

  Athena swallowed the screaming fit that burned, raw, in her throat. Bastard, she thought. I’ll see you crawl for this!

  Rachel’s hands trembled fetchingly as she unwrapped the package, and her face glowed when the strand of precious, luminescent pearls caught the light. “Oh, Griffin …”

  Griffin did not seem aware of Athena’s presence, or her outrage. His dark eyes shone as he gently clasped the delicate necklace around Rachel’s neck, beneath her hair.

  Athena turned on one heel and stumbled into the desperately needed privacy of the parlor. There, looking up at the portrait that would have been her parents’ wedding gift to Griffin, she wept bitter, strangled tears.

  For a time, she heard their muted voices, Griffin’s and Rachel’s, and then, after a long interval, the closing of the front door. Athena shot out of her chair, laid both hands on the hand-painted vase that had graced the piano as long as she could remember, and flung it wildly in the direction of the fireplace.

  The report of its shattering seemed to echo, chimelike, into forever and back again.

  “Athena?” The voice was gentle, firm.

  Athena closed her eyes. “Go away, Mama. Please go away!”

  “I warned you,” said Joanna, softly.

  Athena whirled, wild with grief and anger and humiliation. “He gave her the pearls!” she shrieked.

  Joanna approached, stopping just short of Athena to perch on the arm of a chair and fold her hands. “What pearls?” she asked, reasonably.

  Athena’s disappointment was bitter, fathomless. The pain drove her to pace frantically back and forth, along the edge of the hearth. “T-they belonged to G-Griffin’s mother,” she sobbed, raggedly. “H-her wedding present f-from his f-father—”

  “I see.”

  “You don’t see! Those pearls should have been mine. He should have been mine!”

  There was a measure of sympathetic impatience in Joanna’s answer. “You are torturing yourself needlessly, Darling. Griffin’s feelings have obviously changed, and there is nothing you can do about that.”

  Athena was still pacing. “No! If I tell him I’m sorry—that I made a mistake—”

  “Some mistakes simply can’t be rectified, Athena. You’ve lost Griffin—you lost him a long time ago. For your own sake, accept that.”

  But the dreams were spinning again in Athena’s mind, and she caught hold of them with both hands. Griffin loved her—he was only trying to punish her now, to hurt her the way he’d been hurt.

  She smiled. Griffin had one great weakness, and no one knew better than Athena what it was or how to use it.

  “Where did they go, Rachel and Griffin, I mean?” she asked, in a tone that belied the violent exchange just past.

  Joanna looked alarmed—probably, she thought her daughter had gone mad. It was a long time before she answered. “To a wedding, I think. One of Griffin’s friends is getting married today.”

  “I see,” said Athena, companionably. And then she swept past her stunned mother and made her way up the stairway and into her room. She would wear the blue silk tonight, she decided. The one that André had bought for her, the one that had caused such a stir in Paris.

  • • •

  Fawn was afraid to go inside the church, afraid the minister would take one look at her and berate Field for choosing such a wife. Tears gathered in her eyes, making it hard to see Rachel clearly.

  But Rachel took her arm. “What is it?” she whispered. “Don’t you want to marry Field?”

  Fawn dashed at her tears with one hand, grateful that Griffin and Field had already gone inside, that they couldn’t see her crying. “What if the minister won’t marry us, Rachel?” she asked, sniffling.

  Rachel produced a clean handkerchief. “He’s Field’s uncle! And why on earth wouldn’t he want to perform the ceremony?”

  “Look at me!” Fawn hissed, furiously, swabbing at her face with the handkerchief.

  Rachel studied her, looking honestly puzzled. “You look wonderful—except that your eyes are a little puffy.”

  In spite of herself, in spite of everything, Fawn laughed out loud. It was no use explaining—not to this gentle, unbiased, and absolutely wonderful idiot. She drew a deep breath. “I’m ready, then. And Rachel?”

  Rachel frowned, already tugging Fawn in the direction of the church doors. “What?”

  “When you come back to Providence, will you be my friend? I think I’m going to need somebody like you.”

  Rachel laughed, the heels of her shoes clicking merrily along the pine-board walk leading through the churchyard. “I was going to say that same thing to you, Fawn Nighthorse. I just hadn’t worked up the courage yet.”

  At the doors, Fawn hesitated again, offering a brief, silent prayer to Field’s God. Spare him, please. Let all the hatred rest on me.

  • • •

  The wedding, simple as it was, was so splendidly romantic that Rachel wept without shame. Field’s back was so very straight, and he looked so proud standing there. Flashing an occasional exalted smile at his bride, he repeated his vows in a strong voice.

  Fawn was clearly terrified; all the while, Rachel could see her trembling, sense her fear. But when the gentle, white-haired reverend spoke the final, binding words, Fawn Hollister cried out for joy and flung both arms around her husband’s neck.

  Later, when the congratulations had been made, and the four members of the wedding party had wandered outside, Fawn turned to Griffin with a look of sisterly annoyance on her upturned face.

  “Did you talk Field into this?” she demanded.

  Griffin laughed. “Who—me? I begged him to reconsider!”

  “Liar,” retorted Fawn, bright, affectionate tears shimmering in her eyes, a tiny smile curving one corner of her mouth upward.

  Again, Griffin laughed. He picked Fawn up by the waist, lifted her high in the air, and then set her, stumbling, on her feet. Bending slightly, he kissed her forehead. “Be happy,” he said, in a gruff voice.

  “Will you unhand my wife?” Field blustered, his blue eyes luminous with happiness and laughter.

  Rachel stood just a little apart, watching. Her fingers strayed to the delicate strand of pearls at her throat and softly, cautiously, she dared to hope.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  With a sigh, Griffin sank into the leather chair facing John O‘Riley’s desk. He supposed this conversation was inevitable, but he dreaded it, all the same. It would be hard to separate his feelings—loathing for Athena, abiding respect for John—but he knew he had to. John had no illusions where she was concerned, but he was her father and, quite naturally, he loved her.

  “If you’re going to ask what my intentions are,” he said directly, “I don’t have any. Not toward Athena, anyway.”

  There was a weariness Griffin well understood in the set of the old man’s shoulders, in the depths of his wise, gentle eyes. “You were always a blunt sort, Griffin,” he observed, settling into the chair behind his desk and reaching for his pipe. “It’s one of the things I like best about you.”

  Griffin was tired, in spite of his happiness for Field and his new wife, in spite of the tender misery of being near Rachel and not being able to touch her. And the confrontation with Athena had not left him entirely untouched, either. He hated himself for letting her make him lose control like that. “There are a few things you don’t like, I suspect.”

  “Absolutely,” replied John, striking a match and holding the flame over the bowl of his pipe. Clouds of cherry-scented smoke billowed around his head. “You’re stubborn, opinionated, hotheaded and not a little tyrannical. You would have been a perfect husband for my daughter.”

  Griffin sighed. “John—”

  “Now relax. I’m not going to start pleading with you to forgive and forget—I know you can’t. Don’t think I could, either, if that happened to me.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Don’t strike back at her, Griffin. Don’t hurt her.”

  Griffi
n wondered if he would ever have a daughter, and love her the way this man loved his—without reserve. He hoped so. “I won’t, John.”

  “She was in a state after you left, according to Joanna,” John persisted, reasonably.

  Griffin stood up suddenly, and turned his back. Thumbs hooked behind the buckle of his belt, he made a deliberate, methodical study of the ceiling. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll avoid her from now on.”

  “That might not be as easy as you think,” answered John O’Riley, ruefully. “My daughter has apparently decided that she wants you back. Griffin, there is no telling what she might do—turn around and look at me!”

  Slowly, reluctantly, Griffin turned. “She made her choice a long time ago, John,” he said, in measured tones. “As long as she leaves Rachel alone, I don’t care what she does.”

  The old man sighed, drew on his pipe. “That is exactly my point, Griffin—Joanna and I are both worried about Rachel. She is an innocent, and if Athena levels some kind of destructive campaign at her, she could be hurt very badly.”

  Griffin’s voice sounded hoarse in the quiet, dignified room. “Is Rachel well enough to travel?”

  Grimly, Griffin thought, John nodded. “She is. But, as you know, full recovery could take a long time. From what little the young lady has confided to Joanna and me, I’d say she’s been through a great deal during the past few weeks. Griffin, she simply can’t tolerate very much stress.”

  Griffin clenched and unclenched his fists. “Go on,” he rasped, impatiently.

  John’s voice was cautious, even. “Griffin, make certain that you understand your own feelings. Go slowly, give things time.”

  “Time?” he snapped. “I’ve been ‘giving things time’ for two years, John! I’ve been ‘giving things time’ since the night I found—”

  “Since the night you found my daughter with another man. I know, Griffin. But even now you aren’t indifferent to Athena—don’t you see that?”

  It was undeniable. He wanted to kill her, but he wasn’t indifferent. And he knew that he should be. “I don’t love her,” he said, in an undertone.

  “Be very certain of that before you make any binding promises to Rachel, Griffin. To hurt her thoughtlessly would be the ultimate cruelty.”

  Just the prospect made Griffin feel sick and shaken. “I’ve slept with Rachel,” he confessed, for quite different reasons than he’d had in telling Jonas. “There could be a child.”

  There was a note of infinite weariness in John’s sigh. “Griffin,” he said, and the word was at once a reprimand and an absolution.

  Griffin lowered his head. “The worst thing is, I’m not sure I can promise that it won’t happen again.”

  “Try to wait—be patient. These things have a way of sorting themselves out.”

  “John, I just want to marry Rachel. I just want—”

  “You want. Fine, Griffin—for your sake and Rachel’s, I hope you do marry. But put aside what you want for a moment, and think about her. If you can’t make a full commitment, you’ll be cheating her.”

  But there was Jonas to consider, and men like Frazier. Not for the first time, Griffin wondered how much of the raging passion he felt for Rachel was really love, and how much was a need to challenge Jonas. Was he, when all was said and done, just using her?

  God help me, I don’t know, Griffin thought miserably. I don’t know.

  When he met John’s gaze, he saw understanding in his eyes. He turned from it, and walked out of the study, into the hallway.

  He would have to talk with Athena. If it killed him, he would be civil, rational—maybe even polite. That would prove to everyone, himself included, that there was nothing left of what he’d felt for her.

  Instead of dragging Rachel out of this house, as every instinct warned him to do, he would remain. Suffer through the stupid party. Try to make sense of his thoughts and feelings.

  As if anything in the world had made one whit of sense since the day he’d stormed into Jonas’s house and laid eyes on Rachel.

  With resolve, Griffin squared his shoulders and went off in search of the woman who had so nearly destroyed him.

  • • •

  It was odd, how quickly the romantic spell of the Hollisters’ wedding wore off. Standing at her window, Rachel studied the glaring blue sky and felt uneasy again.

  On the road below, a carriage clattered into view and came to a smooth stop at the O’Riley’s gate. Four men scrambled out, carrying musical instruments in leather cases.

  Rachel was instantly alarmed.

  Dancing. There would be dancing—she should have known that, would have known it if she hadn’t been so stupid. Her heart pounded at the back of her throat.

  Except for a few jigs to the brisk tune of a lumberjack’s fiddle, Rachel had never danced in her life. What was she going to do if Griffin didn’t want to leave before that wretched party began?

  What a fool she would look, while Athena swept gracefully around the room, at home in the arms of gentlemen, never missing a step or stumbling over the hem of her gown—

  But then, it was as though she could see her father’s face again, hear his outraged reprimand. A McKinnon didn’t run scared from anything or anybody!

  Slowly, Rachel raised her chin. Maybe she would look the fool, maybe people would laugh at her. But she would try—she would watch the others and she would mark what they did and then, as best she could, she would do the same.

  Restless, wishing wryly that the McKinnons valued cowardice, Rachel fidgeted at the window. It was then that she saw Griffin striding around the front of the house, toward the garden.

  She closed her eyes, not wanting to know what she knew, not wanting to breath or move or even be. But even with her eyes shut, she could still see with her heart, see just as clearly as if she’d been standing at the garden gate.

  When Griffin entered that soft, fragrant sanction, Athena would be there.

  Grasping the windowframe with both hands, Rachel forced herself to open her eyes. Life wouldn’t end if Griffin changed his mind, it wouldn’t. She could go on, just as she always had.

  Except that her monthly hadn’t come when it should have. Tears slid down her face. She still had money, she reminded herself. She still had her mother’s building in Providence… .

  Another carriage rolled in behind the first, drawn by four very familiar black horses. The door opened, and Jonas Wilkes stepped out, looking handsome in his fine clothes, smiling up at the window.

  Impetuously, and against her better judgment, Rachel tugged at the sill until it gave way and squeaked upward. “Hello!” she cried, glad to see someone she knew, someone inclined to be friendly.

  Comically, Jonas bowed. “Urchin!” he laughed. “You’re going to fall and break your beautiful neck!”

  Glad that her tears could not possibly show from such a distance, she smiled. “I’m not going to fall—I think I can fly!”

  Jonas tilted his head to one side. “Never mind flying, Urchin—can you dance?”

  Blushing, Rachel shook her head.

  Jonas solved the problem with swift dispatch. “I’ll teach you then,” he promised.

  Before Rachel could answer, Griffin came into view, glowering like a storm cloud, his hands on his hips. Apparently, he had already tired of the intrigue in the garden.

  “What is this?” he demanded, glancing sharply from Jonas to Rachel. “The balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet?”

  Standing behind Griffin, Athena dug her nails into the palms of her hands. What was it about this little nobody that made grown men behave like fools? Merciful heaven, Griffin was ready to fight, and Jonas looked blithely besotted.

  Once, Athena thought bitterly, their boundless animosity had had its center in her.

  Athena raised her chin, deliberately brushed Griffin as she passed. “Hello, Jonas,” she said, summoning up the most engaging smile she possessed.

  There was an acknowledgement of her beauty in Jonas’s topaz eyes, bu
t nothing else. “Athena,” he said, touching the brim of his hat.

  In a sidelong glance, Athena saw that Griffin was paying no attention at all to either her or Jonas—he was glaring up at Rachel. “Get down here!” he shouted, so suddenly that both Athena and Jonas flinched.

  Rachel thrust out her chin and shouted back, “I will not, Griffin Fletcher!”

  The little smile Athena scrounged from her dwindling store felt shaky on her mouth. She and Jonas could have been rolling around in the grass, naked as the day they were born, and Griffin wouldn’t have noticed.

  Jonas, on the other hand, seemed to be perceiving everything; his lips were taut, and his strange golden eyes were boring into Griffin’s broad back.

  Athena felt renewed pain. So it was true then—Jonas Wilkes had, at last, succumbed to love.

  “Rachel,” Griffin began, in a voice that would have turned Athena’s bone marrow to mush, had it been directed at her. “Now!”

  Rachel’s head bobbed away from the window, but only for a moment. “You will not tell me what to do!” she yelled. And then a patent-toed shoe came hurtling through the still, lilac-scented air and whistled past Griffin’s head. It was immediately followed by its mate.

  In spite of herself, Athena felt a moment’s admiration for the lumberjack’s daughter. It was a pity, though, that her aim wasn’t better.

  Griffin was outraged; a murderous tremor moved in his powerful shoulders. “All right!” he roared. And then he bounded toward the open doors and into the house.

  Athena closed her eyes, wondering why she did not feel comforted to know that the lovers were so clearly at odds.

  • • •

  The sound of Griffin’s booted feet clamoring up the staircase gave Rachel pause. She must lock the door; she knew that she must—except that Griffin was towering just inside it before she could coerce her frozen muscles to move at all.

  His jawline was taut and white with fury, and his dark eyes snapped. But suddenly, incredibly, just when Rachel was beginning to fear for her life, he began to laugh.

  It was a full, rich sound, his laughter, and when it finally subsided to a lop-sided smile, Rachel was struck with the feeling that it had, somehow, been medicinal.