She drew in a long breath. “He has every right.”
Bennett said nothing, letting the sound of the motor fill the air. Finally. “Of course he does.”
They passed the cemetery, a thousand headstones at awkward angles cascading over the hillside. Then, finally, they came upon Memorial Park. Beech trees swayed in the wind, scattering their leaves over the rolling hillside. She turned off the dirt road onto a two-lane carriage path.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to teach you to drive. Hang on.” She slowed the motorcar as it rumbled over the pathway, careful to keep it in the dirt rows. Once, when driving, she’d veered off the pathway and the uneven ground caused her to lose control. The car plummeted into a depression and stranded her for an hour until the Ernest Wilsons happened by in a carriage and rescued her.
It made the Newport Daily News.
Today, she’d stay on the path and find a secluded place to show him the steering mechanism, the brake lever, and how to work the gas pedal.
They topped a hill and she coasted down to the bottom, to a long stretch of scenic pathway that disappeared into the woods.
She braked and slid over on the seat. “Your turn. This is the brake lever, and you steer it here.” She demonstrated the turning of the wheel.
Bennett just looked at her. “Jinx, I don’t think this is a good idea. I don’t want to destroy your birthday present.”
Around them, the trees seemed to shiver in the approaching storm. Perhaps coming out this morning hadn’t been the most judicious of ideas, but Bennett seemed to be away from the house so often, she didn’t know how much time remained.
“It’s grand fun, Bennett, I promise. And, when you get proficient, you can take Elise out in one of Foster’s—”
“Please stop talking about Elise.” His tone stilled her. “I don’t want to talk about Elise when I’m with you.” He drew in a long breath. “I’m sorry.” A pained expression crossed his face.
She felt it all the way to her bones, a quickening, a scurry of forbidden hope that stirred up the taste of fear inside.
Somehow, she found the appropriate tone. “I don’t understand. Isn’t everything going well with Elise? You said she was pleasant.” Amazing how her own voice could manage such a façade when inside her heart thundered.
“She is. And I—I suppose she is a good match for me.” He turned to her, his eyes searching hers. “But Jinx, even when I’m with Elise, I think about you. I think about your laughter, the way you always try to best me in cribbage, how you have an answer for every social topic I raise, how you know exactly what to say to anyone, and how, when you look at me, I am completely undone. And, heaven help me, I think about that night. I remember everything now, and I can’t dislodge it from my mind. You’re in my head, Jinx, and I fear in my soul too.”
Jinx couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She closed her mouth, swallowed, fear trickling through her at the forbidden desire now wildfire inside.
No, oh no—
He touched her hand then picked it up, held it. She didn’t pull away—just stared at her hand in his.
Indeed, that night came back to her too. Oh.
“I’m in love with you, Jinx. Probably since that first night, although that’s not why. You are so beautiful, and it’s not just your eyes, or your hair—I can still feel it in between my fingers. You have no idea how I long to unpin it, let it fall around your shoulders, to see it in the light instead of my imagination.”
“Bennett…” Please, stop.
“I hate my brother. I hate how he treats you, and I hate that you are entangled in this marriage that will only bring you suffering. But most of all, I hate that he found you first. That I never had a chance to win your heart. That I will never again know that night we shared.”
Oh, Bennett. She pressed her free hand to her lips, her eyes burning. “I…” She closed her mouth before the words could betray her.
No, she’d lived a terrible lie. She wasn’t just fond of him. She loved him. Of course she loved him.
Oh, no. She closed her eyes, shaking. “Bennett, please stop talking.”
“Shh. I know this is wrong. I feel nearly ill at my jealousy for my brother. For my sins against you, Jinx, that night, and every day when I wish you were my wife.” He drew a breath. “God must think me a terrible man.”
“And me, a wretched woman.” She wasn’t sure how the truth emerged, but it lay there, shaken out of her. She couldn’t stop herself from the rest, her tone low as the confession sneaked free. “If I had known it was you that night…” She met his eyes, poured her heart into her gaze. “I would not have left.”
His intake of breath told her just how she ached to give him her heart.
He took her hand then. Closed his eyes and didn’t speak as he ran his thumb over her glove. She longed to take it off, to feel his touch.
“Maybe,” he said softly. “Maybe we could leave. Move to Paris.”
The images rose inside her with such force she cried out. “Oh…no…”
“Or Berlin. Or London. I’ll go anywhere, do anything to be with you, Jinx.” He stared at her, the earnestness in his gaze scaring her a little.
No, not a little. His gaze scared her right to her bones. She couldn’t leave Foster—and move to Paris? What about her life, her homes, society? “Please, Bennett, don’t say such things to me.”
“I know you’re afraid of Foster, but I’d protect you.”
“How? He has unlimited resources. He would ruin you. And he’d never forgive me. Please, stop talking.”
“Jinx, I love you, and I would never hurt you. I swear, I would be true to you every day of my life.”
“No—Bennett! No.” She pushed against him, gave up, and pressed her hands to her mouth. The word shuddered out of her, down to a whisper. “No.”
He stiffened then, something cold, heartbreaking in the expression in his eyes, the tight form of his lips. “I see.”
No, he didn’t. She heard the voice screaming inside her. Yes, Bennett! I love you. I will come with you. But truly, he didn’t understand. “My sister ran away with the man she loved,” she said, softly, “and he died.”
He gave her a terrible look then, something of horror. “You’re afraid I’ll die?”
“I’m afraid of Foster.” She whispered the words, let them fall between them. “He’s capable of many despicable things. He would hurt you.”
“He already has, by taking you as his bride.”
She drew in a long breath, wanting to curl onto the seat, to put her hands over her head, her ears. To weep. “Why do you say this to me? You sneak into my house, into my husband’s bed, you love me in the middle of the night, you make me…” Fall in love with you. No—she’d already gone too far. “Care for you. Of course I care for you. But I can’t love you. I can’t run away with you!”
He recoiled as if she had pummeled him.
Her voice dropped, turned cold, for her sake as well as his. “This is the life I have, the life I created. It’s the one I must hold onto.”
He shook his head. “No, Jinx. You can start over. You can have the life you were meant to live. With me.”
Inside her rose the inexplicable, crazy urge to hurt him, to throw herself at him and rail upon his chest, or leap off the motorcar and run, anywhere, screaming.
Instead her voice tightened, sharp and crisp. “You are even crueler than your brother.”
He flinched. “Jinx—”
“Get out. Stay away from me. Please, just stay away.”
She willed herself not to cry. Not yet. Her throat burned, her breaths came fast.
Mercifully, he got out of the car.
“I will send a driver to fetch you,” she said and released the brake. Then, before she couldn’t see anymore, she lurched the car forward down the path.
She didn’t look back as she left him in the grass. Didn’t care that he looked bereft.
Overhead the sky shuddered, a roll of thunder
beyond the trees. Water spit upon her as she guided the car between the ruts, crying full out now, hearing only his words in her ear, Jinx, I love you.
She’d gotten herself into this mess. She had to live it.
But oh, it just wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair.
She jerked the veil from under her chin, threw it off, and wiped her eyes.
Oh, God was mocking her and her glorious hopes. She’d tried to be the heroine, to save her family, to grab the blessings of her station.
And now God mocked her.
Before her, the world wept, the shower turning the path slick and muddy. She wiped her hand across her face as she crested a hill, reaching for the brake as the carriage careened down the other side. It slid and lurched off the path, onto the grass.
Maybe God mocked them all—their grand lives, their glittering stations. The blessed were destined to live lives of clandestine misery.
She fought the tiny wheel, but the motorcar jerked in the wilds, the brakes nothing as the motorcar slid down the hill toward a thicket of gnarled beech trees.
The car jerked, bumped her off the seat.
Throwing her hands over her head, she screamed as the motorcar crashed into the forest, upended, and threw her into the sky.
* * * * *
“Come back to us, Jinx.”
Her mother’s voice, the authority in it, drew Jinx from the folds of darkness, from the cocoon of safety where she could find herself inside Bennett’s embrace with impunity.
She opened her eyes and the throbbing in her head made her want to sink back into the folds of unconsciousness. Her mother sat on a chair beside the bed, her hands clasped on her lap. At the foot of the bed, Doctor Hanson dictated his findings to a nurse.
“What happened?” Jinx’s hand went to her head and she found a bandage.
“That infernal horseless carriage you love so much—you ran it into a tree,” her mother said. “Bennett found you and flagged down a carriage to rescue you. You’re so fortunate you didn’t break a bone—”
“Or lose the baby.”
The doctor looked up from his dictation.
Met Jinx’s eyes.
“The…what?” No. Oh, no. Her hand went to her belly.
Doctor Hanson glanced at her mother, back to Jinx. “You’re with child, again, Jinx. Didn’t you know this?”
“Of course she did. She is just shaken,” her mother said, her hand cradling her arm. She met Jinx’s eyes, a hardness in them that sent a chill through Jinx.
“Do you know when you might have conceived your child?”
Heat burned her cheeks. Yes. She swallowed, her voice faint. “Foster was here in July, about six weeks ago.” The lie seemed to burn coming out, her throat thickened.
“You’ll have to start bed rest immediately,” he said.
Bed rest? “But I have the motor coaching cotillion.”
“Perhaps society will have to forego the cotillion this year.” Hanson closed his satchel, turned to Amelia. “Immediate bed rest, and please continue to monitor her alertness.” Then he placed his hand on her shoulder, the warmth touching her bones that were so brittle with his news. “You’re a lucky woman, Jinx.”
She nodded and Amelia followed him out.
Her mother closed the door. Turned. Folded her hands across her chest. Smiled. “I admit, I lost faith in you when Bennett showed up. Something about your demeanor with him, the way you two seemed to share a camaraderie, threatened my confidence that you would approach Foster. I should have trusted you, Jinx. I raised a lady like myself—you know what you must do in order to survive.”
Jinx stared at her, praying her expression didn’t betray her. Praying that the wailing inside her head wouldn’t escape.
Pregnant? How could she not have noticed? She did the math, realized that she hadn’t even considered how much time had passed. But the clues, oh, she saw them now. The fatigue. Her upset stomach. Her moods.
The sudden urge to weep. In fact, even as she affixed a smile on her mother, her eyes brimmed. She pressed a hand to her cheek to catch the tear.
“I know you’re afraid, darling.” Her mother perched on the side of her bed. “But you will stay right here, and this time you will have this child.” She pressed her hand to Jinx’s cheek. “You’ll see, everything will work out.”
Jinx nodded, trying to keep the horror from her eyes. Pregnant.
With Bennett’s child.
Her breaths fell over each other.
“Are you all right? Shall I call back the doctor?”
She shook her head. Don’t panic. She could figure this out, fix this. Jinx, I love you, and I would never hurt you.
Bennett’s voice rose, the texture of it wheedling inside. I swear, I would be true to you every day of my life.
“Jinx, what is it?”
She found her voice, hating how it shook. “Is Bennett here?”
Her mother drew in a long breath. “I suspect he is waiting to see if you are okay. Your accident deeply upset him. Certainly seeing you in such a condition unraveled him—he wouldn’t let anyone else touch you as he carried you to your room. You know how I feel about you driving. It’s simply not a sport for women.”
“Mother—”
“He prowled the hallway for a while, and I heard him ask the butler to gather his things so he could take rooms at the Casino.”
“What? Why—no. He can’t leave.” She pressed her hand over her mouth, cut her gaze away from her mother, toward the window. They hadn’t drawn the drapes, and the sun simmered above the horizon, bloody as it bled over the ocean. “Please ask him to stay.”
Her mother considered her. “No.”
“Mother, this is my home, and he is my guest.”
“And you’re my daughter. I will not see you destroyed by falling in love with another man.”
Jinx flinched and her mother’s eyes widened.
“I knew it. You do love him.”
Jinx tried not to move her hand over her womb, to the child inside. Bennett’s child. A child conceived, if not in love, at least not in fear.
But Foster would know the child wasn’t his. She hadn’t exactly greeted him as a wife should. She drew in her breath, probably too sharply.
“What is wrong, Jinx? Are you having pain?”
Yes. “No.”
But her mother gave her a long, hard look, finally drawing herself up. She rose and walked to the window, her back to Jinx. “It’s his child, isn’t it?”
Jinx wound her hands into her bedclothes.
“Jinx?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking—”
“I am not stupid, Jinx. I know what infidelity, what betrayals looks like. I see the frame of guilt in your eyes. And the naive hope that Bennett will burst through those doors and declare his love—”
“He does love me! He told me in the park. He wants to marry me.”
“You are already married. To his brother.” Phoebe rounded on her. “Do you know what Foster would do to him—and to you—if he knew?” She drew a long breath, her voice emerging low. “How could you?”
“I didn’t mean to.” Jinx pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I made a fool of myself, going to his room that first night, when he came home. Only it wasn’t Foster. Bennett slept in his bed and took me into his arms.”
Her mother stilled. Then, in a voice Jinx recognized, something cool and sharp, a tone her mother reserved for her father, “He is a scoundrel of the worst kind. He is leaving, immediately.”
Jinx had no words as she stared at her hands, at the ring Foster had put on her finger, the one that belonged to Esme.
She’d never been his bride, not really, and suddenly, with everything inside her, she wanted to leap from the bed, to throw herself into Bennett’s arms. Yes, yes, I will leave with you!
Her mother sat on the bed, took her hands. “We can fix this, Jinx.”
Maybe he was outside the door right now. She could call his name—he’d ru
sh in.
“There is an easy answer.” Her mother cupped her hand on her face.
What would he say when she told him about his child? She could see his smile, feel his arms around her, the taste of him on her lips.
“You need to invite your husband back, make sure you have marital relations.”
The words stopped the tumble of what-ifs and Jinx stared at her mother, horror in her expression, for sure. “No. Never.” Not after being with Bennett. Not after knowing… “I hate him.”
“You love him. Or you pledged to. He’s your husband, and you owe him honor. At the very least, you must make him believe this is his child.”
“No, Mother. I can’t.” She wanted to fold into herself at the thought.
“You must. For your good.” Her mother pressed her hand to Jinx’s belly. “For your child. Imagine what life this unwanted child would have. Foster would hate your child, divorce you. Ruin our family. I have no doubt he would cut Bennett off, destroy him as well. You would have nothing, nowhere to live, no one to turn to.” Her mother left the rest unsaid, gathered in her eyes.
Jinx moved her mother’s hand away. “I see.” For a moment, she saw her mother standing in the study, telling her father of Esme’s disgrace. Heard the tone. Tasted her father’s disappointment, his anger. Oliver is dead, and Esme is lost. Living hand-to-mouth out in some feral land.
“And, you have no guarantees that Bennett would even marry you. Consider his reputation.”
“It’s a lie, Mother. He isn’t the playboy Foster has made him out to be.”
“So he says. Considering your situation, I might argue otherwise.” Her mother moved over to her desk, opened the drawer. “You will invite Foster home.” She pulled out stationery, a quill pen, and ink. “You will throw yourself into his arms and beg for his love.”
Jinx burned inside at her words, tasting the shame.
“You will make sure that when he leaves again, he believes this child is his.”
This child would never, ever be his.
Jinx found her voice, somewhere under her disgust. “He won’t come home to see me. He must have a reason to return to Rosehaven.”
“You have one. The motor carriage cotillion. He won’t refuse your reminder to be the charming host of Newport’s most coveted ball.”
Heiress Page 15