Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  “It’s too late. I’ve given my word to Nathan.” What might she have said if her husband did not hold the threat of ruin over Ward’s head? She would not think about it. Such speculation could serve no useful purpose and might weaken her self-control.

  “It’s never too late,” he answered. “I don’t intend to let you go, Serena.”

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “Can’t I?”

  The quiet determination in his tone sent alarm along her veins. “I am going to Europe with Nathan. We leave tomorrow aboard his private railroad car. It will be a new start to a new life, and I will be happy with him, very happy.”

  “Who are you trying to convince; me or yourself? It won’t happen. I’ve let this go far enough, too far. Nathan was once a friend of mine. I think he’ll listen to reason.”

  “No,” Serena exclaimed, her voice rising as she took a step toward him. “You can’t interfere. Nathan won’t stand for it.”

  Ward’s eyes narrowed, and a frown appeared between his brows. “He’ll have to.”

  “You don’t understand!”

  “Enlighten me,” he drawled.

  Serena twisted her fingers together. “He resents you, not only for the past, but especially because of what has taken place since our marriage. He is satisfied, now that I’ve promised to go away with him, but he may change his mind if he learns you have been here, or if you antagonize him.”

  “I may do more than antagonize him,” Ward said.

  “No!”

  “What are you worried about? You sound as if you think I should be afraid of him, or as though you are.”

  “You — you said yourself that he would be likely to ruin you if he knew about us.”

  “He might have been able to, once. Now, he’s welcome to try. But why such concern? I would have thought you would like nothing better.”

  “I — prefer to fight my own battles,” she told him, her voice unsteady.

  “And a formidable foe you are. It would probably serve Nathan right if I let you go with him.”

  “That’s simple. Only leave well enough alone.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t, not while I still have hope of a cease-fire between the two of us, and eventually, a surrender.”

  Anger for his willful blindness boiled up inside her. She should have known he would belittle the danger, refuse to recognize it. How had she expected anything else?

  “You are a fool, Ward Dunbar. I am married to Nathan. Don’t you see it’s over between us?”

  “Never. I won’t let you go. Nothing and no one will take you from me, not if you don’t want to go. If you choose Nathan freely and without reservation, than I won’t stop you. Only tell me you love him, and I will gladly step aside. But if you give me the least hint, knowing there is nothing to choose between our wealth, that you prefer me, then I will level the mountains of this valley crater, tear this town apart board by warped board, and peel the rails of the train tracks from their beds like so much licorice before I will let him keep you from me, or take you away.”

  Serena felt as if he had struck her. She could only stare up at him, the need to deny that wealth had any bearing on the matter colliding in her mind with her attempt to accept the violence of his declaration. Her blue-gray eyes widened as he took a long step toward her, reaching to grasp her arms, giving her a small shake.

  “Nathan is your husband, but that tie can be broken. Either he will grant you a divorce, or I will find another way to set you free. He is not the problem, Serena; you are. Which shall it be? Forgetting the wrongs I have done you and the mouthing of meaningless words like gratitude and duty, passing beyond thought, touching only on what you feel, tell me: In the darkness of the night, would you rather turn to Nathan, or to me?”

  Her face twisted as the emotions inside her leaped to meet the suppressed fury that gripped him. She tried to wrench her arms from his hold, but he would not let her. The burning green of his eyes impaled her, demanding an answer.

  “All right,” she whispered, going still. “You then, damn you!”

  She saw the flare of triumph in his hard gaze, and then she was swept against him with bruising strength, and his mouth came down to crush her lips. There was a white-hot brightness behind her eyes. She felt as though her heart would burst and her blood catch fire in her veins. She had committed herself, and the agonizing fear of it was beyond bearing.

  As abruptly as he had caught her to him, he released her. His face was like a mask as he drew back. He steadied her an instant, then he swung on his heel and strode to the door, pulling it open, banging it to behind him. Serena heard his footsteps cross the hall, and the closing of the front door.

  White-faced, she stood where he had left her. She raised her fingers to her stinging lips without noticing their trembling. In her head a turgid refrain repeated itself. What have I done? it sang. What have I done?

  There was no immediate answer. The sun settled behind Mt. Pisgah, casting the dark shadow of the mountain across the veranda and the drive. Nathan did not return, nor was there any message. For something to do besides roaming from window to window staring out, Serena bathed and dressed for dinner, putting on the gown Mrs. Anson had left out for her, though its taupe color made her skin took sallow and she did not like the steel bugle beads that jangled in a fringe from the draped bodice. Dorcas, who had run her bath, wanted to put her hair up in curls on top of her head. It was her one talent, a way with hair. Serena refused, pulling it back in a severe knot. What did it matter how she looked?

  Throwing a shawl about her shoulders against the chill, she went along to the nursery. As she moved down the hall, for some reason her thoughts were far away. In the lower South this time of year, it would be spring. The nights would be balmy and fragrant with the smell of growing things. The earth would be alive with fecundity, instead of sterile and drear and wrapped still in winter. With a shake of her head, she pushed open the nursery door.

  In the light of a pale-blue fairy lamp set near the cradle, she gazed down at Sean, snared in a paralyzing tenderness by the sight of his fine lashes resting on his cheeks and his small pink hands outflung on either side of his face. Mary, already dressed for bed, roused herself from a rocker before the fire. With a shake of her head, Serena indicated she would not stay, would not wake the sleeping babe.

  Moving back down the hall, she returned to her room. There would be a fire in the study, but she had no wish to go down. She had closed the memory of what had happened there earlier out of her mind and was loath to do anything that might allow it to push its way back in. She felt suspended, encased in numbness. After all she had been through, it was not an unpleasant sensation.

  The dinner hour came and went. She wasn’t hungry. She didn’t care if she never ate again. No one disturbed her. Time passed. She considered ringing the bell and ordering a bowl of soup, if only to assert her authority, her right to consideration. She rejected the idea. She did not want the food, and it might well be a matter of indifference to her soon how insubordinate Mrs. Anson’s attitude became.

  The darkness outside the windows grew less dense. The moon rose, gilding the dark branches of the evergreens, shafting its rays along the ground until every unmelted snowbank, every rock and leafless twig, stood out in stark contrast. So brilliant was its light that it was several seconds before Serena noticed the firefly specks of carriage lamps on the drive. There were more than one pair of them. Following behind the first vehicle was a second with the wavering glow of lanterns hanging low, as if suspended from the bed of a wagon.

  Serena was standing halfway down the stairs when Mrs. Anson opened the front door. At the sight of the strange men who stood just outside, looking uncomfortable in their dusty miner’s garb, her fingers tightened on the banister. Then at the forefront she recognized the superintendent of the Century Lode, an older man named Boston. Beside him was a younger man with narrow, intelligent features and clothing less grubby than the rest. It was the latter who stepped fo
rward.

  “I’m Patterson, the engineer assigned temporarily to the Century Lode,” he said to the housekeeper. “Could I see Mrs. Benedict on a matter of great urgency?”

  Mrs. Anson, her face going pale, nodded in the direction of the stairs where Serena stood. With slow steps, Serena descended the treads, stopping at the bottom.

  “I’m Mrs. Benedict,” she said, her voice low and clear.

  The young engineer hesitated. Superintendent Boston stepped to his side. “I don’t know how to tell you this, ma’am. Maybe you better sit down, or something?”

  “What is it, Mr. Boston?”

  The older man glanced at the housekeeper, then at the engineer. It was Patterson who spoke, his grip creasing the fedora he held in his hands. “There was an accident late this evening at the mine. Mr. Benedict was rushing to get the new hoist working. I — I told him it wasn’t ready, that we ought to send it down empty a few more times, but he was bent on trying it. Everything went fine on the way down, but—”

  Serena swallowed. “Yes, go on.”

  “On the way back up, something went haywire. The drum taking up the cable started spinning backward. The safety brakes that were supposed to hold didn’t. Before we could do a thing, the cage dropped six hundred feet to the bottom level with Mr. Benedict inside.”

  Horror brushed Serena, then subsided. Her lips stiff, she said, “Is he—”

  “We cranked the cage up as fast as we could by hand, but it was too late.”

  Mrs. Anson cried out, throwing her apron up over her face. Serena glanced at her, then beyond the engineer and the superintendent to the men crowded in the doorway, employees of the mine, men who worked for Nathan — had worked — men who knew — had known him well. They shifted, avoiding her eyes, ducking their heads in embarrassed silence, almost as if they felt responsible.

  “Where is he?”

  Superintendent Boston nodded toward the open door. “The body is out there, in the wagon. I — I wouldn’t look if I was you, Mrs. Benedict. It would be best if you didn’t.”

  Serena swayed a little, then caught herself even as the engineer took a quick step forward. Mrs. Anson, her head bowed as she sobbed, moved to the hall tree, sinking down on the marble bench. Dorcas stepped out of the darkened parlor to sit beside her mother with tears running down her face.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Serena said, a haunted look in her blue-gray eyes, one hand clutching the shawl around her shoulders.

  “There’s nothing to do,” the engineer said. “We notified the coroner. He’ll be along as soon as possible. If you’ll tell us which undertaker you want, somebody’ll go after him for you.”

  Serena gave a small shake of her head. “I don’t know.”

  From the rear of the crowd came a low, masculine voice. The two men turned to listen, the young engineer smothering a cough that prevented Serena from hearing. The superintendent nodded in agreement, and delegated a man to ride back into town, before turning back to her.

  “Do you want him brought inside, Mrs. Benedict?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Serena began, with an uncertain glance toward the upstairs bedroom where Nathan had slept.

  “No. Wait for the undertaker. It will be time enough for that when he has finished.”

  This time the voice was clear. Serena drew in her breath. The men had parted, shuffling aside to let the superintendent, the engineer, and the man who had spoken see each other. The light from overhead penetrated beyond the group to the outer darkness of the veranda. A tall figure stood there with the cold night wind ruffling the brown waves of his hair, and his eyes glittering in his drawn face. A part of the group, his clothes were powdered with the same dust from the mine roads, as though he had come with them from the Century Lode.

  It was Ward.

  Serena wore black to the funeral, mourning being a basic item in the wardrobe of a lady of fashion, for whom the proper observance of the obsequies of death was a rigid requirement. Her gown was of faille banded at the hem and the wide yoke with jet passementerie. With it she wore her coat of French sable and a close-fitting velvet hat hung with black crepe. The veil was Mrs. Anson’s contribution. She had brought it, smelling of camphor, from a box in the attic where it had lain since the death of Nathan’s first wife. The housekeeper had offered to tack it to Serena’s hat, insisting that it would be expected. Serena had not protested. It did not seem to matter enough, though she had always felt such swathings of black an affectation.

  In fact, she had reason to be grateful for the concealment the veil offered at the graveside. Even in her detachment, she began to notice the sidelong glances cast in her direction, the stares that were hastily averted when she happened to glance up. Her frozen countenance and dry, burning eyes were also shielded. Moreover, she was able to look about her, to observe the crowd that stood in the cold wind on the barren hilltop of Pisgah graveyard. The most influential men of the town, with their fur-wrapped wives, shifted from one frozen foot to the other beside miners and their families, fancy women, pitchmen, gamblers, barmen, and the hangers-on of a dozen saloons who had been treated to a drink on more than one occasion by the man in the bronze casket. Consuelo, her face contorted with grief, was supported by Ward on one side and Welsh Timothy from the Eldorado on the other.

  Serena was sorry for the Spanish girl’s loss and pain. She would have liked to go to her, to express her sympathy, but the width of the grave separated them. In addition, she felt encased in the solemn respectability of her widow’s weeds with their stiff bands of glittering jet like fossilized tears. She was not certain she could come so close to Ward without shattering the calm that was her greatest ally. How shocked everyone would be if she suddenly began to scream, accusing him of murder.

  Serena raised her gloved fingers to the high jet collar that covered her throat. She swallowed against the aching pressure in her upper chest, then clasped her hands once more on the black-edged handkerchief she held. The voice of the minister droned on and on. It was not Elder Greer, thank God. The Mormon was nowhere in evidence, another cause for thankfulness. She could not have endured his insane ranting today. It was all she could manage to stand still under the sanctimonious platitudes of the man conducting the service, the preacher Mrs. Anson had assured her had been the earthly guardian of dear Mr. Benedict’s soul.

  The smell of the roses and carnations mounding the casket was strong in the clear, pure air. They reminded Serena of the day they had buried Lessie. Her headstone stood stark and white to one side. The man who had taken her life so brutally still lived, still walked among them, waiting to strike again. How long would such an obscenity have been tolerated if the chosen targets had been men of wealth and position such as those around her — or even their wives? Consuelo had been right. There was a different set of laws for women of the lamplight. It was as though beyond Myers Avenue they had no existence. The death of such a person hardly counted to those in authority. It would be different if they learned of the murder of one of the district’s richest mine owners.

  So far, there had been no sign that Nathan’s death was looked on as anything other than the accident it was first designated. It might be they were keeping it from her, the grieving widow. It might also be that Ward had been astute enough to commit the deed without being detected. He was an intelligent man. His one mistake may have been in telling her what he intended, putting into words his determination to set her free, one way or another.

  The casket was being lowered. Mechanically, Serena stooped to take the first handful of earth, dropping it into the grave. The picks and shovels they would use to fill in the hole with the rocky, half-frozen soil that had been dynamited from the hard ground lay nearby. Serena closed her eyes to shut out the sight, waiting with dull patience for the final prayer to end.

  At last she could turn away. A few of the mourners, men for the most part, stepped up to offer her their condolences. These were soon done, however, the bankers and miners and stockbrokers wandering back
to their tight-lipped wives. Serena was able to move toward her carriage, where Jack sat on the box in solemn patience, and the stableboy, an unaccustomed tie strangling him and his hair slicked down with pomade, stood holding the door for her.

  She picked up her skirts, preparing to join Mrs. Anson and Dorcas, who were already inside on the forward seat. At that moment a rider shouted and came pounding up the hill at a gallop, his long hair flying and the swallowtails of his rusty black coat flapping. Elder Greer pulled up, taking in the situation with a wild, encompassing glance. His gaze fell on Serena, and he piled down from his horse, coming toward her at a shambling run.

  Serena’s head came up. The easiest thing would have been to scramble into the carriage and give the order to drive off; it would also be the most cowardly. She stood her ground, aware of the interested faces turning in her direction.

  “The news was brought to me late, but the Lord was with me, and I am come in time. Praise Him! I am His instrument of chastisement, sent here to call you to account, Serena!” He held his hand uplifted over her head in a travesty of a blessing. His words, though directed at her, were for the benefit of the audience he saw before him.

  “Why must you do this?” Serena asked.

  He paid no attention. “You spurned a good man for a life of debauchery, married one of the finest citizens of Cripple Creek and betrayed him with your paramour! Now you have found a way to enjoy your ill-gotten gains without the yoke of a husband. For shame! You will burn in hell for your sins, O daughter of darkness. You—”

  “That’s enough.”

  The quiet words cut across the tirade like a knife. Serena swung her head to find Ward beside her. He touched her arm in reassurance, a touch that urged her to step into the waiting carriage.

  “I have a mission!” the elder shouted, his voice cracking.

  “This is neither the time nor the place for one of your sermons,” Ward grated. “This is a time for respect for the dead.”