A Time To Dream

by Sherry Lewis

  “They’re my sons, too,” she reminded him.

  “As God is my witness,” he said slowly, as if he thought she might have trouble understanding, “you’ll never see those children.”

  “At least tell me why.”

  Zacharias’s hands curled into fists at his side. “Are you going to pretend you don’t know?”

  “I’m not pretending,” Shelby assured him, “and I’m not mad. I’m asking you for help. You’re my husband, and I’d like to understand what happened between us.” When he didn’t respond, she straightened her shoulders and decided to fight fire with fire. “Is it your relationship with Patricia Starling that makes you unwilling to talk to me?”

  He didn’t say a word, but his face looked as if it had been carved of cold, gray marble.

  “At least tell me why you prefer her to me,” Shelby insisted.

  If someone had told her Zacharias could look more formidable than he had a moment ago, she wouldn’t have believed them. But the evidence presented itself right before her eyes. “There is a simple answer to that, my dear. Patricia has a heart.”

  So much poison filled the words, Shelby had to work hard to remember they weren’t directed at her. She stood to face him, resting her hand on the back of her chair and hoping he wouldn’t notice the trembling of her fingers. “So do I Zacharias.”

  “Is that so?” The frigid smile curved Zacharias’s lips again. “Could it be that you have decided to become a woman, at long last?”

  Shelby lifted her chin a bit higher. “I have always been a woman.”

  “Have you?” He dragged his gaze along her, leaving no doubt about the direction his thoughts had taken.

  Shelby still refused to run. She forced herself to stare back into his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Patricia enjoys my attention.”

  What a jerk, she thought. Aloud, she said, “Maybe I would, too, if you gave me a chance.”

  “Is that so?” he said again. His eyes narrowed into slits as they roamed across her face. His nostrils flared slightly. Without warning, he closed the distance between them and gripped her shoulders, pulling her slightly off-balance. “Have you decided you like this, then?”

  Before she could make a sound, he settled his lips on hers. His arms slid around her, solid, firm, and as unyielding as steel bands. She tried to protest, but she couldn’t draw a breath. She tried to push him away, but he held her too tightly.

  Without warning, his anger seemed to evaporate. He deepened the kiss slowly, tentatively, and Shelby’s anger and fear vaporized. All at once, he didn’t seem huge and threatening. Still huge, but now almost gentle.

  He probed her lips gently with his tongue. Shelby knew she shouldn’t respond, but it had been so long since anyone had kissed her, and he did it so well, she couldn’t seem to help herself. She parted her lips slightly inviting more even while her brain shouted at her to pull away.

  She’d been kissed before, but never like this. From somewhere far away, she imagined a slight moan of pleasure. Was it from him? Or her?

  “Agatha.” It was more a sigh than a word, but it brought reality back with a resounding crash.

  Zacharias wasn’t kissing her, he was kissing Agatha. And Shelby had no business responding to another woman’s husband. Planting both hands against his chest, she shoved him away. But his mask had slipped and she saw the man behind it fully. His eyes were soft and clear and even vulnerable. His chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath.

  In the next second the mask came crashing down again, the vulnerability she’d glimpsed disappeared, and the cynical expression returned.

  “You still don’t like it,” he drawled. “Do you?”

  On the contrary, she’d liked it very much. Too much. But apparently Agatha hadn’t. Shelby didn’t know what to say or how to react. Her biggest question of the moment was, what kind of woman could stay unaffected by a kiss like that?

  She tried to maintain her dignity, to keep her chin up and her hands steady. “I don’t like being manhandled against my will, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That was always the trouble,” he said, wrenching open the door and making to step through. “It was always against your will. And I’m no more interested in marriage to a block of ice than I ever was. I’m tired of trying to find a welcome in your bed, Agatha. If I ever take a wife to my bed again, it will be one who knows how to behave like a woman.”

  “Like Patricia Starling?” It was petty and spiteful, but the question popped out before she could stop it.

  Zacharias’s face hardened, his eyes turned to fire, but instead of arguing with her he sketched a mocking bow. “Good-bye, Agatha. Badgett will see you out.”

  “I think that went well,” Shelby said to the walls when the door slammed behind him. “You’ll have him eating out of the palm of your hand in no time.” Sighing, she picked up her gloves from the table where she’d dropped them and started to pull them on. From the corner of her eye, she saw someone step into the room.

  Badgett, no doubt, come to give her the boot.

  Trying to look as if nothing had happened, she glanced up . . . and straight into the cold hard eyes of a woman whose thin, patrician face was made severe by lines of stern disapproval. She might have been any age from thirty to sixty, Shelby couldn’t tell. Her honey-colored hair might have been flecked with gray and the skin around her eyes might have sported a few wrinkles, but Shelby couldn’t be certain. She seemed ageless.

  While Shelby watched, disturbed by the coiling fingers of unnamed apprehension, the woman closed the door and gave Shelby a slow once-over, assessing every lock of hair, every cell on her face, every inch of fabric.

  “Well. Agatha.” Her voice was heavy with distaste. “To what do we owe this honor?”

  Strangely, a line from a deodorant commercial popped into Shelby’s head. Never let ‘em see you sweat. But this was one scenario she’d never seen portrayed in the advertisement and she wondered if any modern antiperspirant could have stopped the moisture from gathering beneath her arms.

  She tried desperately to look unaffected while she pulled on her gloves. “I came to see Zacharias.”

  “I see. And what, pray tell, could you have possibly had to say to him?”

  “That is between Zacharias and me.”

  The woman laughed, one harsh note that seemed to reverberate from the walls. “I see.” She walked slowly toward a green brocade chair, perched on it like a queen taking her throne, and motioned Shelby toward another. “I suppose it’s time for the two of us to have a little chat.”

  The encounter with Zacharias had left Shelby shaken, and another confrontation—with a woman who looked as if she could freeze fire—didn’t sound very appealing. But her years of bouncing from one foster home to another had taught her to begin as she meant to go on. If she showed weakness now, she’d never be able to face this woman from a position of strength.

  She sat carefully and forced herself to meet the woman’s gaze. “What do we need to talk about?”

  “Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to explain what brings you to Winterhill after all this time?” It wasn’t a request, it was a command.

  Shelby resented the woman’s imperious manner but she also realized she might learn something from this hateful woman, so she lifted her chin and answered. “That’s very simple,” she said. “My family is here.”

  “Your family.”

  “My husband and children.”

  The woman’s eyebrows arched. “The husband and children you turned your back on five years ago? The husband and children you have refused to speak to or even set eyes upon? The husband and children you have consistently treated as if they were dead? Is that the family you speak of?”

  Shelby’s mouth dried, an ache started in the back of her neck and shot into her head, but she held her ground. “I don’t understand what concern this is of yours.”

  “Don’t you?” The woman’s face clouded and hatred sparked in her eyes. “Perhaps you d
on’t. A woman capable of turning her back on her own children might not understand a mother’s concern for her son and grandchildren.”

  This was Zacharias’s mother? Shelby had read about Victoria Logan, of course. The archives were full of stories about her. But how on earth had this cold, granite-skinned woman given birth to the man whose passionate nature attracted her and whose kiss had just rocked the world beneath her feet?

  She tempered her tone before she spoke again. “I can understand your concern, Victoria, better than you can imagine. But I assure you I’m not here to hurt Zacharias or the children.”

  “No?” Her eyebrows arched even higher. “Well, that makes me feel so much better. Perhaps I am worrying needlessly.”

  If the words hadn’t been heavily laced with sarcasm, Shelby might have believed her.

  “Nevertheless,” Victoria went on, “I do worry. I shall not sit idly by and watch you destroy my son again.”

  The words were delivered with the brutality of a sword thrust. Shelby rested her hands on the arms of the chair and visualized a verbal fencing match.

  She parried. “I didn’t come here to destroy your son. I came to make things right.”

  Victoria’s lip curled. “I see.”

  “Circumstances have changed,” Shelby said, “and I very much want to put my family back together. I want to be a mother to my children.”

  Victoria pulled a fan from the folds of her skirt and waved it languidly in front of her face. “And you want my blessing?”

  Shelby hesitated over her response. Victoria’s animosity was so strong she could feel it across the room. Shelby didn’t want anything from her, and the likelihood that she’d give her blessing was virtually nonexistent. But it would be nice not to have to wage war against the dragon-lady sitting across from her.

  “I would very much like your blessing,” she said at last.

  A satisfied smile curved Victoria’s mouth. “Of course you would. But that’s one thing you’ll never get from me.” Vicious thrust.

  What a thoroughly nasty woman. She reminded Shelby of the foster mother she’d had the year she turned twelve—bitter, angry, full of hate, and determined to prove to the world that no one could be nastier than she. Back then Shelby had been young and easily intimidated, and her life had been pure hell for eight long months. Now, she didn’t have to tolerate cruelty.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, “but it won’t make any difference. I still intend to put my family back together.”

  “Surely, you can’t think I’ll believe you’ve suddenly had a change of heart, or that I’ve forgotten the humiliation you have brought upon this family. For all your upbringing, Agatha, you have behaved abominably.”

  Shelby wanted desperately to ask how, but she knew Victoria would view her questions as a sign of weakness. “Whether or not you believe that I’ve changed, that doesn’t make it any less true. Even you can’t change truth into falsehood.” Take that, you old bat.

  “Perhaps not.” Victoria waved her fan a little faster. “Let’s not pretend with one another any longer. I never did approve of you as a wife for Zacharias. If he’d listened to me and married Patricia Starling in the first place, none of this would have happened.” Ouch. Deep thrust.

  “But he didn’t marry Patricia Starling,” Shelby pointed out reasonably. “He married me.” Right back at you.

  “Unfortunately. But he has the chance to rectify that mistake, and I intend to see that he does.”

  They weren’t fencing any longer, Shelby realized. Victoria had issued a declaration of war as clearly as if she’d drawn a gun and fired it. It might not be Shelby’s war, but she was the one in the trenches and she wouldn’t retreat from the battle for Agatha’s life and sanity.

  She stood quickly. “You’ve made your position clear, Victoria. Now I’ll do the same. Zacharias is my husband, Andrew and Mordechai are my children. I’ll fight to the death to put my family back together, and no one—not even you—will stop me.”

  Victoria’s smile grew even more satisfied, like a cat with a dish of cream. “We all know what a pretense that is, Agatha. And I’ve agreed to it for the sake of the children. But make no mistake. If you persist in trying to put your marriage back together, I’ll expose everything.”

  Shelby didn’t let her uncertainty show, though she wished desperately she knew what Victoria could expose. “If you were going to do that,” she said, keeping her voice tightly controlled, “you’d have done it already. No matter what threats you make to me, you won’t expose anything that might harm the children.”

  Victoria’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, then narrowed again. She dipped her head in acquiescence. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I won’t expose the truth. But I will do everything in my power to make sure that Zacharias divorces you.” She swept to her feet and leveled Shelby with an acid glare. “Rest assured of that.” Without waiting for a response, she swept from the room and left Shelby trembling in her wake.

  What a perfectly dreadful woman Victoria Logan was. And what a frighteningly powerful one. But with her blessing or without it, Shelby still had a job to do.

  Zacharias stood well back from the window in his second floor sitting room, determined to make certain Agatha wouldn’t see him there. That kiss had shaken him to his core and left him confused. Who would have ever imagined Agatha capable of such surrender?

  No, he amended quickly, not surrender. Not capitulation. Not Agatha. Not ever. She’d responded with a passion stronger than he would have ever believed. The kind of passion he’d once dreamed of awakening in her, but never had.

  If only she’d responded that way during their marriage. If only she’d welcomed his embrace, even once. If only she hadn’t stiffened each time he touched her, and looked upon his lovemaking as a distasteful duty to be endured with tight lips and closed eyes. If only he had been the kind of man for whom her cool lack of response would be enough.

  His scowl deepened. The man didn’t exist for whom that would have been enough. Zacharias’s needs weren’t the problem. The problem was that Agatha had expected everything from him and been willing to give nothing.

  He kept his eyes riveted on her as the carriage lurched away from the mounting block and rolled down the drive. And he saw, unbelievably, her shoulders slump when she thought no one could see her.

  That, in itself, was enough to make him wonder. She’d been behaving like a different woman these past two days. Even he couldn’t deny that. But after everything that had passed between them, how could he believe it was genuine? How could he trust it to last?

  If only he could, he just might agree to make another attempt at their marriage. But two days out of a lifetime weren’t enough to convince him that she’d truly changed. Sooner or later, she’d go back to being the same stone-hearted woman she’d always been and Zacharias would be a damned fool if he let himself believe her.

  He stepped away from the window, snatched up his hat and coat, and stormed out of the room, bellowing for Badgett to call for his horse. And he promised himself that, difficult though it might be to resist her until she tired of her game, that’s exactly what he’d do.

  SIX

  Zacharias strode into his gentleman’s club determined to spend some time in the company of men where he could forget about Agatha and put the feel of her lips out of his mind. Divested of his hat and coat, he made his way into the dimly lit room where strategically placed leather chairs and tables made private conversation possible.

  He listened to the muted buzz of male voices with satisfaction. There would be no talk of dinner parties and flower arrangements here. No one asking him to reconcile or divorce. No one making demands of any kind. He wanted only stimulating conversation about subjects that mattered.

  He signaled for a brandy and moved toward a small knot of men standing near one of the room’s gigantic fireplaces. Smiling in anticipation, he clapped a hand to Judge Beaming’s shoulder, took his place in the circle, and nodded a gr
eeting to Orville Englund, Nathan Fullmer and Gregory McDonald. “Gentlemen. Do you mind if I join you?”

  “Not at all.” Judge Beaming turned his watery blue eyes on Zacharias and followed with a quick smile. “Good to see you again, my boy.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Nathan Fullmer said, making a vain attempt to tug the edges of his waistcoat across his expanding middle, “we were just talking about you.”

  Flattered, Zacharias accepted his brandy from a silent-footed waiter. Did they seek his thoughts on politics? Business? Finances? Industry? No matter. He could discuss them all with equal confidence. He sipped and lowered his snifter again, prepared to delve into something of merit. “In what context?”

  “Prudence informs me that we’ve been invited to Winterhill for one of your famous dinner parties, and I’ve just learned that these fine gentlemen will also be in attendance.” The judge’s jowls wobbled slightly as he talked, evidence that he’d enjoyed a great many dinner parties in his time. “We were wondering what culinary delight your Emmaline will have in store for us.”

  Zacharias’s smile chilled. He stared from one face to the other in stunned disbelief. “I’m afraid I have no idea. My mother has all those decisions well in hand.” He made an effort to shift the conversation to something more substantial. “I was noting the progress on the bridge as I rode into town—”

  “How is your mother?” the judge interrupted.

  Zacharias broke off to answer. “She’s well, thank you. And Prudence?”

  The judge’s thick lips pursed. “Still struggling to accept our loss. She occupies herself with good works these days—and with trying to find a suitable husband for Gloria.”

  Zacharias acknowledged the death of the Beamings’ eldest son with a slight incline of his head and ignored the reference to the judge’s available daughter. The last thing he needed was another zealous mother nipping at his heels. He allowed a suitable moment to lapse, then tried again. “I’m beginning to wonder if the railroad will finish the bridge on schedule.”