Vivian had turned white. "You have no right to tell me who I can and can't like."
"I'm just trying to look out for you. Laveau is evil. He's--"
"You're just jealous."
"What?"
"You're telling lies about Laveau because you're jealous."
"Why would I be jealous?"
"Because I married Abe Calvert instead of you. I know you loved me and wanted to marry me."
"Vivian, that was a long time ago. We were practically kids."
"You weren't. You were a grown man, and you were crazy in love with me. That's why you came to Texas--to look for me, to make me marry you."
"Yes, I did come to Texas hoping to marry you, but--"
"You can't force me to marry you. You'll be poor your whole life. I won't be poor. I won't!"
Holt didn't understand how Vivian could think he could force her to marry him. Even less did he understand her apparent panic.
"You've never been poor," he said.
"Living in a wealthy household doesn't make you rich. You don't know what it's like not to have a penny of your own, to have to be grateful for every morsel of food, every piece of clothing, the roof over your head."
"Uncle William adored you. He would have given you anything within his power."
"You don't understand. Nothing was mine."
"No, I don't understand," Holt said. "You appeared so happy, I thought you had everything you wanted."
"They even sold my clothes when my father died. I won't let that happen to me again. I won't!"
"I promised my uncle I'd take care of you, but--"
"What can you do for me? You don't have any money."
"I don't need a lot of money to be happy."
"Well, I do. I won't spend my life having babies, worrying about what to cook for dinner, and cleaning up behind some man who gets drunk with his friends every evening. And I'm not going to marry some doctor who's only interested in taking care of people who can't pay him. I want to go to parties, wear pretty dresses, and have a big house."
"I only wanted to help. I feel responsible for you."
"Well, don't," she said, flouncing away from him. "I can take care of myself. I appreciate your concern," she said, suddenly changing her attitude to one of assumed maturity, "but you don't need to worry about me. As you said, I'm a grown woman. I'm responsible for my own actions. So I release you forever from feeling you have any responsibility toward me."
"My uncle asked me--"
"It would have been different if Price's Nob hadn't been destroyed, but it has, so you have no way to take care of me. And I don't want you to try. I forbid you to try ever again. Now you must go. I have to get ready to go out." She swooped down on him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "You really are very sweet. I'll always love you."
Two realizations hit him simultaneously. Vivian didn't mean the same thing he did when she used the word love. What she meant was a tepid emotion that she only acknowledged when it was convenient.
The second realization was more important. He didn't feel responsible for her anymore. He would always have a soft spot in his heart for her, but he wasn't responsible for her life. She had lifted a huge burden from his shoulders. He felt so relieved, so light of heart, he had to restrain himself from releasing a huge sigh of relief.
He stood. "I'm glad things are going well for you. I won't hold you up. One last word of warning. Watch out for Laveau diViere. Sooner or later he'll turn on you."
He didn't give Vivian a chance to defend Laveau. He left the house quickly, practically running into the street. He was free! Free! For the first time he could remember, his life was his own. There was no one who could lay claim to it.
He couldn't wait to tell Felicity.
* * *
Felicity was sure that if she didn't get out of her room, she would go crazy. She retreated there to escape being alone with Holt. She ought to say hide, because that's what she was doing. She was acting like a foolish girl, but she couldn't help herself. Being around Holt and knowing he was in love with another woman was more than she could endure. She didn't understand how after years of being perfectly capable of controlling her reactions to every man she met, she should be completely incapable of doing so with Holt.
The long evenings she'd spent in her room alone had been torture. She could force herself to do handwork--trim handkerchiefs, embroider pillowcases, crochet a baby's cap, even work on a patchwork quilt--but she couldn't study any of her father's medical books. Before she finished a single page, she would be daydreaming, Holt having completely consumed her thoughts. Reciting to herself why she couldn't have him hadn't kept him from invading her dreams as well. Holt had become something of an obsession with her. Obsessions had to be confronted before they could be defeated, so she gave herself free rein to confront Holt, to come face to face with the very temptation that tormented her relentlessly.
The first component of her obsession was that he liked her. She hadn't believed it for a long time, but she had to accept it because he stayed when it would have been much easier to leave. But lots of people liked her, and she liked lots of people. That was okay. It wasn't threatening.
The second component was he liked her enough to want to kiss her. That was more dangerous, but she wasn't experienced with kissing. Maybe there were all kinds of kisses--friendship kisses, I-like-you kisses, I-love-you kisses, even kisses of pure passion that had nothing to do with love. If she was going to figure out how to handle the situation, she ought to sample Holt's kisses until she knew what kind they were. A kiss of pure passion might be dangerous in one way, but it didn't have to lead to a broken heart.
Holt's kisses certainly seemed to be more than friendship or I-like-you. They couldn't be I-love-you kisses, because he didn't love her, so they must be kisses of pure passion. That made her nervous, but it also excited her. She'd never aroused passion in anyone before. It gave her a sense of power to know she had the ability to influence the actions of a man like Holt. It also gave her a great deal of pleasure.
The third component of her obsession was believing he could find her physically attractive. Felicity had lived her whole life under the shadow of a mother who was so beautiful, her father had become an alcoholic so he could stand the pain of having lost her. Felicity knew she wasn't beautiful enough to inspire that kind of adoration. She wasn't sure she wanted to be, but she had always wanted to feel that a man could find her attractive, might even think she was pretty. Holt had repeatedly said she was pretty, and proved it by his continued attraction to her.
The fourth component of her obsession was that he wanted to make love to her. Just the thought sent the blood thrumming in her veins. She'd never considered letting a man make love to her until she met the man she was born to love. She had always known she would know him when she found him. What she hadn't anticipated was that he might not love her. But she couldn't control herself when it came to Holt. She had let him kiss her three times. Worse, she had kissed him back and was aching to do it again!
There was no one she could talk to, no one to help solve the riddle of her behavior.
She had heard Holt leave the house earlier, so she ventured out of her room. But that wasn't the answer. Everywhere she went, something reminded her of Holt. The spot in the parlor where he first kissed her. The consulting room where she helped him with his operations. The kitchen where he ate his meals. The library where he and her father consulted their medical books. The house felt as much his as hers. On impulse, she decided to go outside. She chose the back yard. She needed privacy.
She could probably count on one hand the times she'd been in the yard at night, but the gentle rustle of the leaves overhead was soothing. The distant sounds of ships in the bay gave her a sense of place, of belonging, yet being apart. Lights from neighboring houses glowed warm and quiet through the trees. The soft night air caressed her skin with gentle coolness. The deep shadows were like a protective mantle thrown over her, the moon and stars like friend
s come to sit with her. She wandered over to a chair under a live oak and sank down into it. Two small red eyes stared at her out of the shadows. Moments later a mother opossum waddled across a corner of the yard, several babies clinging to her fur.
Felicity heard the bellow of a bull alligator in the distance, and shivers ran down her spine. She was glad their house was several streets over from the edge of the island. But not even the awareness of alligators had the power to disturb the calm that gradually fell over her. She hadn't felt this peaceful in days. Weeks. Since Holt arrived.
"I read somewhere that a woman looks especially beautiful in the moonlight. I never believed it until now."
Felicity tried to deny the excitement that caused her heart to beat so hard it was almost painful, but it was useless. When it came to her reaction to Holt, logic and self-control flew out the window.
"That's because the shadows make it harder to see the imperfections," she answered. "It's a lot like being in love."
"That's a particularly cynical point of view."
"But realistic."
She continued to stare into the shadows under the trees. She didn't have to turn around to see Holt. His image never left her mind.
"I'm glad you finally decided to come out of your room," Holt said. "It's not good to be closed up so much."
"I've had a lot of thinking to do."
"Was any of it about me?"
"Some."
"Want to tell me what you decided?"
"I've decided it's not a good idea for a man who's in love with one woman to go around kissing other women."
"I've kissed only one other woman."
"That's an even worse idea."
"Why?"
"Because that woman might think you meant something special by singling her out."
"And if I did?"
"She'd be making a mistake."
"People can change their minds."
He couldn't know how much she wanted to believe that, but she knew about men who became hypnotized by beautiful women. She looked up to see Holt standing just a few feet from her.
"I won't pretend I didn't enjoy kissing you," she said. "I won't pretend I don't like you. Even though some of the things you've done have made me extremely angry, I believe you're a fine, honorable man. You'll make Vivian a wonderful husband."
"Vivian doesn't want to marry me. Besides, I don't love her."
Holt's own words had given him away, Felicity thought. His first statement was that Vivian didn't want to marry him. That he didn't love her followed. It didn't precede. If it had, Felicity might have reacted differently.
"I don't know what you and Vivian said to each other, but six crucial years have gone by during which you were separated. It's only natural that you would have a lot of catching up to do."
"I don't think I ever loved her. I think I fell in love with the idea of her."
That was even worse. Men could let go of reality, but an ideal would stay in their hearts and minds forever.
But it wasn't just a question of Holt's feelings. Felicity knew that Vivian would flirt with other men, she might even marry another man, but Holt would be her constant, her shield against disaster, the one man she knew she could depend on when she had nowhere else to turn. Even if Holt didn't love her, he would feel he had to keep her safe. Vivian would use this feeling to keep him tied to her. She'd never let him go.
"Maybe you're right," she said to Holt, "but it's not important. You're bound to her, whether you want to be or not."
"You can't know that."
"My father fell in love with the ideal of my mother more than her reality. Her death nearly destroyed him."
"I'm not blind to Vivian's faults."
"They haven't changed the way you feel about her."
"You don't know how I feel. You haven't given me a chance to tell you."
"Can you tell me you love me?"
"No, but--"
"Can you tell me you'll never see Vivian again?"
"Of course not, but--"
"Then you can't tell me anything that won't hurt us both."
Holt had kept his distance, apparently determined to convince her he was calm and rational, that he had his feelings under control, but now he closed the distance between them, gripped her hands which she had clasped tightly together in her lap, and pulled her to her feet.
"Neither of us knows what can happen until we give it a chance," he said. "I can't make any promises, but--"
"I don't want any promises."
"--neither do I want closed doors."
She tried to pull her hands away, but his grip was too firm. "I've thought it all out. There's no point in opening doors or looking around corners. You and Vivian need to decide what you're going to do now that you've found each other. My father and I have to decide what to do once he's well."
"Aren't you even interested in what could happen between us?"
"There is no us. We're just two people whose paths crossed briefly."
"I don't believe that. I don't think you do, either."
He pulled her into his arms. She wanted to fight him but knew it would be useless. It was better to show no resistance, to prove that his words had no effect on her.
"I've never wanted to kiss anybody like I want to kiss you," Holt said.
"Only because I'm not an ice princess. I'm real, human, ordinary, but you can't have the ice princess and the peasant girl."
"You're not a peasant girl, and I don't want an ice princess. I never did."
"You may think it's possible for you to fall in love with me, but I don't love you."
"You don't know what can happen."
"I've seen you with Vivian, heard you talk about her. There is nothing here for either of us."
"You're wrong."
She had been expecting him to kiss her, had steeled herself against it. His touch had always destroyed her resistance, but she was determined it would be different this time. She refused to react to the pressure of his mouth on hers, to the sensations of his body pressed against her from breast to thigh. She had to ball her hands into tight fists to keep from putting her arms around his neck. She had to force her jaw to go slack to keep from kissing him back. She had to go rigid from top to bottom to keep from pressing herself against him.
She had nothing left to keep one tear from running down each cheek.
He broke the kiss, released her, and stepped back.
"You're not going to give us a chance, are you?"
"There is no chance."
"You could be wrong."
She didn't respond.
He took her hands in his. He was gentle this time. "I know you've always felt that every time you reach out for love it's snatched away from you. You've been hurt badly, but you can't let disappointment cause you to close yourself off from people. A lot of us care for you in different ways. You've also felt alone. It frightened you so badly, you tried to stop feeling. I did the same thing. I don't know how long it will take me to learn to let myself feel, to discover what is real about myself and what I made up for protection, but I'm going to do it, because I can't really begin to live my life, to enjoy being alive, until I do. When I learn how, I'm going to teach you. You may never come to love me, but neither of us is going to go through life only half alive."
He leaned forward and kissed her gently. "You deserve much more than that. And so do I." His lips formed a smile that was purely mechanical. "Enjoy the night. Sometimes I think it can be even more beautiful than the day."
Then he backed away. He continued backwards until he was halfway across the yard. Then he turned and walked away without looking back.
Felicity remained unmoving until she heard the back door close. Then the energy left her body with such suddenness, she practically collapsed into her chair. Refusing him had to be the hardest thing she'd ever done. She sincerely hoped he wouldn't try again. She didn't have the strength to resist him a second time.
"I didn't know your father was ill until
Vivian commented on it," Lillie Hart said. "I'd have come by earlier if I'd known."
Felicity had been very surprised when Lillie Hart and Charlotte Albright dropped in for a visit.
"There's no reason you should have known. We haven't told anyone."
"I certainly understand. It can be a terrible inconvenience to have people popping in all the time. Company makes for a great deal of extra work."
Felicity had liked Lillie from the moment she met her, but she was surprised that anyone would know a visit to express concern and support could be a burden instead of a help.
"We have been rather busy. Even with Holt helping, we've been getting more and more patients."
"That's good."
"It's certainly good that more of them can pay with cash. I know times are hard, but it's very difficult to buy medical supplies with a sack of cornmeal or several dozen eggs."
"I should think so," Lillie said, laughing. "I could just see Clifford's face if anyone presented him with a sack of cornmeal. He probably wouldn't know what it was."
Felicity didn't know why she was discussing such a topic with a woman who obviously didn't have trouble making ends meet, but she was glad for Lillie's company. Charlotte had gone off for a short visit with her mother before returning to pick up Lillie. Lillie said her husband had the carriage today, so she'd have been on foot if Charlotte hadn't offered to take her.
"We used to have a difficult time ourselves," Lillie said, lowering her voice as though she were sharing a confidence. "That's why we moved to Galveston. Clifford said if he had to die of starvation, he'd rather not do it in front of our friends."
"I thought you'd always been well off."
"Clifford wasn't rich even before the war. Daddy didn't want me to marry him. He said business wasn't a proper occupation for a gentleman, but I held out until he gave in. I'm grateful for all the business Vivian has helped Clifford find," Lillie said. "I'm glad she lives with us. It's not suitable for a single woman to live alone."
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