Memory's Embrace

by Linda Lael Miller

  “That was obvious!” Keith bellowed. “Don’t you know anything? Virgins are supposed to weep for their lost virtue, not come right out and say they liked it, for God’s sake!”

  Tess shrugged again. Now that she had the emotional upper hand, it was easy to overcome her pain and her injured pride and goad Keith Corbin as he deserved. “I plan to practice it from now on,” she said, delighting in the stricken rage that moved in his maddening, magnificent face. “Portland is a big city, and I suppose there will be all kinds of opportunities—”

  He grasped her shoulders, gave her a hard shake, abruptly let go again. A flicker in the sky-blue eyes indicated that he was wise to what she was doing. “You can plan on practicing free love between here and there, at least,” he said.

  Tess’s mouth dropped open; it was a moment before she could regain her composure. If ever there was a time to change a subject, that was it. “Tell me about Emily.”

  “Who?”

  A flush of remembered shock tingled its way up Tess’s neck and into her face. Nothing except her mother’s swift slide into madness had ever stricken her the way the sight of that wedding ring had, the way his cry of another woman’s name had. “Your wife,” she said. “You called her name when—when—you called her name!”

  Keith turned away, and his shoulders tensed beneath his shirt. “No.”

  Tess rounded him, looked up into his face. “Yes,” she argued. “I told you about my mother and everything else. It’s only fair that you tell me about your wife. And while you’re at it, Mr. Joel Shiloh-Keith Corbin, you can just explain why your family is so desperate to find you that they’d offer a reward like that!”

  “Get in the wagon,” he said, avoiding her eyes.

  “No. Not until you answer me.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, striding off toward the wagon, where he proceeded to hitch up the now-nervous mule.

  Surely he couldn’t intend to forsake her, out here in the middle of nowhere? Tess became so incensed at this thought that she picked up her skirts and marched over to where he was working, the muscles in his arms and shoulders moving in jerky, furious motions.

  “You would desert me here, after what you just did?” she demanded.

  “Desert you? Lady, I’d like to kill you.”

  Tess withdrew a step. Then she realized that this man, for all his apparent madness, would never kill anyone. There was a fundamental goodness inside him, a deep if reluctant sort of integrity that set him apart from every man she had ever known. “Tell me about Emily,” she insisted.

  Keith did not look at her. He went so far as to stoop and pass beneath the mule’s belly to stand on the other side of the beast. “Her name wasn’t Emily,” he said, with a hoarse sort of tenderness that left a scar deep in Tess’s heart. “It was Amelie. She was killed moments after we were married.”

  Tess swallowed hard, hurting for his loss even though she had never felt more jealous. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and it was the truth. “How did it happen?”

  Keith stopped then; bleak blue eyes pierced Tess over the mule’s back. “There was an explosion. Somebody had laid charges of dynamite inside the church. The ceremony was outside—if it hadn’t been, everyone there would have died. The bell—the bell struck Amelie and she was killed.”

  Tess put one hand over her mouth and turned away for a moment as an album of horrible images flipped through her mind. “Dear God.”

  “There is no God,” Keith said coldly, and the subject was closed.

  They traveled through the morning in silence, coming to a small town at midday. Keith stopped the wagon on the main street, which was little more than a logging trail, and proceeded to sell bottles of laudanum and castor oil and hair dressing with an exuberance that stunned Tess, considering his earlier mood. He drew people from every part of that tiny community, people of all sizes and shapes and ages. Those who had money spent it happily.

  Tess watched and listened, wondering all the while. Peddlers were a gregarious lot, as a rule—they had to be if they were going to earn any kind of living. But Keith Corbin spoke with an authority that went beyond that; he led easily, deftly, as though it were a game to him.

  “Where did you go to school, anyway?” Tess asked, when most of the medicines had been sold and they were sharing a hearty restaurant luncheon on the proceeds.

  He smiled at her, reaching across the checkered café tablecloth for the salt shaker. “Oxford,” he replied blithely.

  “Oxford?!” Tess could barely believe it. The piece of pork chop she’d just stabbed with her fork hung in midair. “The one in—”

  “England,” Keith supplied. Damn him, he knew he’d presented her with another mystery, and he was enjoying her puzzlement.

  “Why do you sell medicine, for heaven’s sake, if you went to Oxford?”

  Keith held up a spoonful of mashed potatoes. “To eat,” he answered.

  Tess was wild to know more, to know everything. But she realized that Keith wasn’t going to tell her, and she wasn’t going to beg. She shrugged and concentrated on finishing her meal.

  Derora Beauchamp was quietly, coldly furious. Though her ankle throbbed every step of the way, she made her way up the stairway and into Tess’s room.

  Sure enough, her niece’s best dresses and camera were gone.

  A tearful Juniper appeared in the doorway, wringing her hands and a corner of her apron into a tangle. “She ain’t here?” the woman mourned.

  “Juniper, Tess obviously is not here.” Derora glared speculatively up at the ceiling. “She’s run off with that good-looking peddler,” she mused. But then she got a hold of herself and met her housekeeper’s eyes. “Did you send the wire?”

  Juniper nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I did.”

  “There may still be a chance of finding them,” Derora pondered aloud. “Has there been a reply yet?”

  “No, ma’am. The boy said he’d bring it by when it came. Mrs. Beauchamp—”

  Derora’s ankle hurt, and she was, thanks to that ungrateful snippet of a niece of hers, out a staggering sum of money. “What, for heaven’s sake?” she snapped impatiently.

  “There’s a man downstairs, askin’ for Miss Olivia.”

  “Did you tell him she isn’t here anymore?”

  Juniper shook her head.

  “Oh, bother,” sighed Derora. She did get tired of dealing with Olivia’s persistent suitors. After all, the woman was mad as a hatter. Why did they even want her, given that she could do nothing, nothing at all, besides stare into space?

  Limping down the stairway, spurning Juniper’s anxious attempts to help, Derora considered her sister. The dear fool, even as a child she’d been odd, Olivia had. Claiming she could talk to Uncle Henry, see and touch him, and this years after he’d died, for pity sake. Going mad over one man, when hundreds wanted her.

  She reached the bottom of the stairs and curved one arm around the newel post, to steady herself. Asa Thatcher hadn’t even been handsome—rich, yes, but not handsome. From his photographs, which Olivia had mooned over for hours on end, Derora would have called him homely, in fact.

  A tall, cadaverously thin man stood near the parlor fireplace, wearing a somber but well-made suit. His arms appeared too long, his hands were positively matted with dark hair to match the thick thatch on his head.

  “May I help you?” Derora ventured, testy from the pain in her ankle and the loss of the reward the Corbin family was offering for the return of their lost sheep.

  The man turned and Derora knew a moment of jarring surprise. Bleak brown eyes studied her from beneath bushy black brows, set on a gaunt, almost skeletal face. Dear heaven, but that fellow did resemble—who did he resemble?

  “I seek Miss Olivia Bishop, please,” he said, “My name is—”

  Derora recognized him and wondered how on earth such a man could have fathered a beauty like Tess, won such lasting devotion from her scatter-brained but devastatingly attractive sister. “Asa Thatcher,” Derora broke
in.

  A slight nod was offered, followed by a weary sigh that suggested constant, fathomless pain. “I have traveled a good many miles, madam,” he said. Abraham Lincoln, that was who he looked like. Abraham Lincoln. “Tell me, please, where I might find my—where I might find Miss Bishop.”

  Derora bore no particular rancor toward this man. She felt that Olivia, by dallying with a married man, had gotten pretty much what she deserved. But she took a certain pleasure in answering, “I’m afraid I have distressing news for you, Mr. Thatcher. My poor, dear sister has been confined to an asylum for some years now.”

  Asa looked as though he’d been struck a shattering blow. He braced himself against the mantelpiece with one arm and lowered his head for a moment. Dear Lord in heaven. What had bright, laughing, beautiful Olivia seen in this dreary fellow?

  “Where?” he rasped finally. “Where is this—this place where they keep my Livie?”

  The emotion in his voice gave Derora pause. She had always assumed that he had toyed with her sister, used her. Not once had she considered the possibility that he might return the tiresome sentiment that Olivia had borne for him. “The hospital is called Harbor Haven, and it is in Portland. I can give you the address if you’ll give me a moment to look it up in my—my accounts.”

  Asa Thatcher was no fool, that was clear. He caught Derora’s implication, subtle as it had been. “You’ve paid for Livie’s care, then?”

  No need to mention that Tess had, in effect, worked for the money. After what that little chit had done, why make her look good to her neglectful father? “Yes,” she said evenly, “and I don’t mind telling you that that care has been costly indeed, Mr. Thatcher. And then, of course, there was your daughter—”

  The homely man brightened visibly; the mention of Tess seemed to renew him somehow. “My daughter She is here, at least?”

  “I regret to tell you that Tess has—has left us.”

  Asa swayed, paled. “Left you?” he echoed, in hollow tones.

  “Oh, my dear man—I’m sorry.” Derora hastened to approach her guest, take his skinny arm in her own. “I didn’t mean that our Tess had departed this earthly life! She’s well.” She maneuvered the shaken man toward a chair, into which he fell gratefully. “I merely meant to say that—well—she’s run off. With a man.”

  Asa covered his scarecrow face with one gaunt, bony hand, and his sigh was a hoarse one. “Does she love this fellow?”

  Derora went to the sideboard and took a decanter of brandy from among the porcelain shepherdesses and framed photographs that cluttered its top. She poured a generous portion and handed the glass to her guest. With a sigh of her own, she sank into a chair facing Mr. Thatcher’s. “Tess has—will you forgive me—a way with men. She quite bewitched this peddler and—”

  “Peddler?!” rasped Asa Thatcher, with startling spirit. “My Tess, my beautiful Tess, has taken up with a peddler?”

  Derora lowered her head to hide her smile, entwined her hands, ladylike, in her lap. “I’m afraid so, Mr. Thatcher.” When she looked up, her eyes were filled with tears and her smile was gone, for Olivia was not the only natural actress in the Bishop family. “As God is my witness, sir,” she choked out brokenly, “I tried to carry on after Olivia—after our sweet Olivia collapsed, but—being alone myself—being poor—”

  “I understand, dear lady,” Asa Thatcher comforted her gruffly. “I understand. Burdens that should have been mine were thrust upon you. I have only myself to thank for the state of my family.”

  And me to thank for the roofs over their heads and the bread in their mouths, Derora thought fiercely, though, of course, she would not say such a thing aloud. “We all do what we must, Mr. Thatcher,” she said softly. “We all do what we must.”

  Asa had already downed his brandy; now he thrust his skeletal frame out of his chair with determined energy. “And I must gather my sheep,” he said. “Tess was always close to her mother. It would be my guess that, in finding the hospital where Livie stays, I’ll also find my daughter.”

  Derora thought quickly. “You’ll—you’ll give them both my love, won’t you?”

  It was just the right measure of tender concern, of long-suffering devotion. Asa Thatcher smiled and reached into his suitcoat for his wallet. He gave Derora a respectable sum of money for her care of Tess and promised to wire his bank in St. Louis for more, this last meant to compensate her for the cost of Olivia’s confinement.

  Derora deliberately widened her dark eyes. “Oh, but it’s too much, Mr. Thatcher,” she lied. “Olivia is my sister, after all—it was my duty—”

  Asa was already on his way to the door. “The duty was surely mine, dear lady. How I wish that I had undertaken to fulfill it more wisely.”

  It took all Derora’s self-control not to laugh and crow and count through that thick wad of currency again and again, to remain circumspect and dignified. But if her composure was false, her curiosity was not. “Mr. Thatcher, you love my sister very much, don’t you? Pray, tell me why you turned her and Tess out so—so abruptly.”

  Thin shoulders moved in a broken, despondent sigh, memories filled the sunken eyes. “My late wife did that, with the help of our daughter, Millicent. I had no knowledge of it until it was too late.”

  “You mean, they sent Tess and Olivia away? It wasn’t your doing?”

  “I would sooner have parted with the breath in my lungs than given up my Livie or our little girl. But I was away from St. Louis on business, and it was regrettably easy, apparently, for my wife’s attorneys to convince Livie that the order came from me. When I returned from New York”—Pain, real and ferocious, moved in his plain-featured face—“they were gone.”

  “The letters,” Derora remembered suddenly. “Olivia wrote you letters, and so did Tess.”

  “I received no letters,” Asa said flatly, and Derora believed him. “It was only after my wife’s death—a scant two weeks past now—that I found out what had happened. My daughter, Millicent, had fallen in love, and this worthy emotion had sparked some pity in her, some sense of compassion. She told me that she and her mother had intercepted the letters and burned them.”

  “My God,” breathed Derora, remembering how Olivia had despaired, how Tess had hated.

  Asa took her hand, squeezed it. “I must go now and find my dear Olivia. Thank you, madam, for your unfailing kindness throughout.”

  Derora remembered the bills clenched in her hand and beamed. “You are most welcome, Mr. Thatcher,” she replied, with the utmost sincerity. “And God speed you on your journey.”

  Thatcher smiled his forlorn smile, and then he was gone.

  Juniper stood, wide-eyed, in the dining room doorway. “That man was the spittin’ image of Abe Lincoln!” she cried.

  Derora lifted the bills, fanned them out in front of her face to be properly admired. “How would you like to own your own roominghouse, Juniper?” she sang. “Five dollars down and five dollars a week and, my dear, this dreary place is yours!”

  “Sold!” said Juniper, with feeling.

  Tess did not begin to worry about the night to come until they were well away from the little town where Keith had sold virtually his entire stock and making camp in a verdant, wildflower-strewn clearing beside a pond.

  The sky looked angry and too dark for a spring evening; there was a storm coming. The mule, tethered where he could graze and drink from the pond at will, was fitful despite the copse of wild birch trees that would shelter him.

  Tess leaned against the wagon, her arms folded, her eyes wide and wary, watching Keith lay rocks in a circle, gather sticks, and start a fire.

  “Are you going to help me, woman,” he demanded, with a good-natured sort of impatience, “or just stand there gawking?”

  “It’s going to rain,” Tess fretted, glancing ruefully up at the sky.

  Keith shrugged, still grinning. Damn him, he knew what was worrying her, but he offered no reassurance. Oh, no. He just passed her, leering a bit as he went, and cl
imbed into the back of the wagon. After a noisy search, he came out with a strip of canvas wound around four long wooden poles.

  Smiling to himself, he proceeded to set up a crude sort of canopy that would keep the fire from going out, should the sky make good on its promise.

  “What’s so funny?” Tess demanded, tired of his smug smirk. There was a limit, after all.

  “You are,” he answered expansively, grasping one of the poles that held up the canopy and giving it a shake to test it. “Drag a log over here, will you? We’re going to need more wood.”

  “Drag a—”

  “Well, you don’t expect me to do everything, do you? You’ve got to pay your way in this world, Tess. Pull your own weight, as it were.” His blue eyes swept over her, appreciatively mischievous. “Such as it is, anyway,” he reflected, at length.

  “If you think, for one minute, Mr. Keith Corbin, that I am going to—”

  Keith folded his arms, the bowler hat at a cocky angle on his cocky head, his azure eyes twinkling. “I thought you believed in free love. Don’t you want to save the world, Miss Bishop? Don’t you want to end war and hunger and poverty by giving yourself to me?”

  Tess colored richly; she hated herself for blushing but she couldn’t help it. “How would that end war and hunger and poverty?”

  “Exactly my question. But that’s what you free lovers believe, isn’t it? Here’s your chance to strike a blow for universal peace. Are you going to miss it?”

  “You lecher. You’re not concerned with ‘universal peace’! You’re concerned with your own p-personal satisfaction!”

  “Aren’t we all?” he countered, and though he didn’t move, it was as though he had shrugged.

  Tess wanted to claw his eyes out. “I’m not,” she said loftily.

  “Nevertheless, Miss Bishop, I’m going to make love to you tonight. I’m going to—”

  “You’re not going to do anything to me!”

  He only laughed.

  And because Tess knew that her body would override her will if that insufferable man so much as kissed her, she turned and flounced off into the trees to find the log he’d asked for earlier. Maybe the effort of chopping it into firewood would exhaust him.