Memory's Embrace

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I thought she was going to drag you behind a trunk and have her way with you,” was the blithe response. “If you want parts in Mr. Golden’s plays, it seems to me that you could get them through Cynthia and leave me out of the whole nasty thing.”

  Rod was sulking. “He’s interested in you,” he said sullenly, when they were nearing the hotel.

  “You’re not going to trade me for a tunic and a pasteboard dagger, Rod, so forget it.”

  Rod was so furious at this that, when the carriage stopped in front of the brightly lighted Grand Hotel, he got out and stormed inside, leaving Tess to fend for herself.

  She was used to that. With dignity, she got out of the carriage unaided, paid the gawking driver, and swept into the lobby.

  There was an elevator, but Tess chose not to use it. The one time she had, she’d been with Keith and had felt safe, but she hadn’t liked the way the thing lurched and squeaked on its cables.

  The hallway on the top floor was empty. Tess started to open the door of Suite 17 and then, still a little breathless from climbing all those stairs, she turned, without planning to at all, and knocked on the door of the Corbin suite instead.

  When there was no answer, she brashly turned the knob and again it gave and the door opened. She stepped inside, felt for the dial that would ignite the gas lights.

  The suite was not, as she had expected, an exact duplicate of Asa’s. Oh, no, it was very different.

  And Tess felt like a burglar. “K-Keith?” she called out, pleasantly.

  No answer.

  “Keith!”

  Still no answer. Damn that man, where was he? In a saloon somewhere, drinking himself into a stupor? With a woman?

  Tess preferred to believe that he was anywhere but with a woman, even in jail. She would wait here, that’s what she would do, because after what had transpired in that wagon of Keith’s, she had the right to a civilized goodbye, at least.

  She explored the suite to occupy herself, feeling like a skulking snoop but enjoying every second of the adventure anyway. There were five large bedrooms in that elegant quarter, along with an enormous, fully equipped kitchen, two bathrooms, and a library that boasted its own billiard table.

  Tess ran one hand over the green felt surface of that table, feeling rashly sinful just for touching it. Probably, no woman had ever dared play the game here; it was strictly reserved for men.

  She yawned, covering her mouth with one hand. When Keith came back, she’d make him teach her how to play billiards. In the meantime, however, she’d just sit down on that Moroccan leather couch beneath the windows ….

  Tess opened one eye, closed it again. Good Lord, there were two men in the billiard room, two enormous, formidable men, and neither of them was Keith. She lay perfectly still on the leather couch, hoping that they wouldn’t notice her.

  “Will you look at this?” one of them fairly shouted, and Tess knew that he was standing over her, for every sense she possessed swore to it.

  “Good Lord,” said the other one, from a distance—though not quite the distance Tess might have wished.

  Her nose began to twitch, and she was sure that a deaf man could have heard the thundering, terror-stricken beat of her heart.

  “Open your eyes, minx,” ordered the nearest giant, though not unkindly.

  Tess compromised by opening just one. The man was fair, like Keith, and his features were at once ruggedly masculine and patrician. His eyes were the keenest, fiercest shade of indigo-blue that she had ever seen, and they were snapping with annoyance.

  If the Archangel Michael were to descend to earth, Tess reflected, this was how he would look.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, bending slightly.

  Tess did her best to melt into the sofa back. “I—I—who are you?”

  “Leave her alone, Jeff,” interceded the other man, and Tess looked past the archangel to see a dark-haired, devilishly handsome fellow with eyes of that same disconcerting blue. “You’re scaring her to death.”

  Jeff stepped back, albeit reluctantly. He looked as though he might like to close his hands around Tess’s neck and squeeze until her eyes popped. “Who are you?” he repeated, irritation ringing in every tone.

  “M-My name is Tess. Tess Bishop.”

  “Where is my brother?”

  Tess sat up, still terrified. He meant Keith, of course. He had to mean Keith. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

  “That must be why we found you sleeping in his suite!” challenged Jeff.

  “Calm down,” ordered the other man, with a certain quiet firmness. “It’s obvious that she hasn’t been with Keith. If she had been, she wouldn’t be sleeping on the library sofa, you idiot.”

  “I would tell you where he was if I knew,” lied Tess sweetly, trying to enlist the further sympathies of the dark-haired man.

  He came to the sofa and crouched before her. “My name is Adam Corbin,” he said. “This maniac is my brother, Jeff. We don’t plan to hurt you and we don’t plan to hurt Keith, either. We just want to talk to him, to make sure he’s all right.”

  Though Adam Corbin spoke kindly, quietly, Tess knew she hadn’t fooled him by saying that she would betray Keith’s whereabouts if she only knew them. “I haven’t seen him since”—she saw the light of dawn coming, gray-pink, through the windows—“since yesterday.”

  “That little bastard,” muttered Jeff, pacing back and forth on the other side of the billiard table.

  Tess would not have described Keith Corbin as a “little” anything, but she supposed that, to that man, who probably lived at the top of a beanstalk and could smell the blood of Englishmen, he was. “I’ll thank you not to use language like that in my presence,” she worked up the nerve to say.

  Adam’s dark blue eyes danced. He still crouched before Tess, but now he took her hands in his. Held them gently. “You still think we would hurt him, don’t you?”

  “You did offer a reward for his capture!”

  “His capture?” Adam made a visible effort not to laugh. “Tell me honestly, Tess: can you imagine anyone capturing Keith?”

  Tess bit her lower lip and thought. She smiled to remember that crazy man flinging dishpans and coffeepots at a deity who could strike him dead if He so wished. “I guess not,” she said.

  “We had a wire from a woman in Simpkinsville, saying she’d seen Keith and that he was using the name Joel Shiloh. She also said that her niece, Tess, had run away with him.”

  Trust Derora. Tess lowered her head. “I didn’t actually run off with him,” she almost whispered. “I couldn’t live with my aunt anymore, so he brought me here, to Portland.”

  “And?”

  Tess met Adam Corbin’s blue eyes. Behind them flashed a lethal, penetrating sort of intelligence. She lifted her chin, “And I guess he’s gone. I waited here all night. I hoped he would come so that I could say goodbye—”

  “Some preacher he is,” muttered Jeff, still pacing.

  “Preacher?” Tess nearly swallowed her tongue. Images of the sweet yet wicked things she and Keith had done together burned in her mind, hot as the coals of hell. “He’s a preacher?”

  Adam flung one scathing look at his blond brother and then rose to his full height. “Yes. Or, at least, he was.”

  “Until Amelie was killed,” said Tess, and the mourning she did was not for the dead girl but for her own hopes.

  “The day she was buried, he threw his clerical collar into the river,” Adam said, and the tone of his voice was gruff with remembered horror and grief. “He rode out that night and none of us have seen him since.”

  Amelie’s wedding ring glinted and gleamed in Tess’s mind. No doubt it was hanging from its chain, as always. “He still grieves for her,” she said softly, brokenly, betraying more than she realized. “He still loves her.”

  “He’s a fool!” put in Jeff.

  Tess decided that she disliked at least one of Keith’s brothers. Specifically Jeff. But before she could make the tart reto
rt that sprang into her mind, Adam spoke.

  “Is he, Jeff?” The question was evenly modulated, but it sounded dangerous, too. Almost like a warning of some sort. “What if it had been Fancy who died that day?”

  “It wasn’t Fancy. Or your Banner. So what is the point—”

  “The point is that Keith apparently isn’t ready to deal with any part of his old life, and that includes us. I just suggested this before; now I’m ordering it. We leave him alone, Jeff. We call off the detectives. We pull the reward offers out of the newspapers.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. Keith is a grown man now; he’s no longer the little boy we took whippings for. When and if he wants to come back, he will.”

  “Damn it, I love him!”

  Tess looked at the archangel in wonder.

  “So do I.” The indigo eyes of Adam Corbin touched Tess briefly, perceptively. “So do we all. And that’s why we’re going to leave him alone from now on.”

  “What if he needs us?” fretted Jeff. What was that moistness in his eyes?

  Tess heard the echo of Keith’s voice; he’d wept when they made love that night, in the wagon. It’s fashionable in my family, he’d said.

  “I must go,” she said. Neither man seemed to hear her, and when she left, neither tried to stop her.

  Chapter Eleven

  KEITH CORBIN FINGERED THE WEDDING BAND AS THOUGH it were a talisman, capable of dispelling all the lethal things he was feeling. Amelie, he chanted to himself. Amelie.

  But her name worked no magic. He still missed Tess, still wanted her.

  He grasped the small of his back and flexed all his muscles, like an old man calling attention to his rheu matism. In the polished morning sky, a bird passed over, swooping and swirling. The mule snuffled companionably, as though to greet it.

  “I suppose you think this is funny,” Keith said, to the sky. “Well, let me tell you something. I don’t believe in you anymore. And nothing you can do will make me marry that woman!”

  He stopped himself. Why was he standing here talking to someone he didn’t believe existed? Furthermore, who had said anything about marriage?

  The mule neighed.

  “Who asked for your opinion?” barked the man, kicking dirt over his campfire. But, all the same, he permitted himself to imagine being married to Tess, imagined himself surrounded by a flock of wild-haired, blue-eyed children calling him “Papa.” He imagined building a house, preaching sermons again—

  “No!” he bellowed. “No!”

  And then he broke camp, without even having coffee, let alone breakfast. He hitched the mule to the wagon. He would go to Simpkinsville again—thanks to Tess, he hadn’t called on any customers there. He would concentrate on things that mattered. Selling laudanum, castor oil, and liver pills.

  Having made this firm and fast decision, he climbed into the wagon seat, took up the reins, and headed straight for Portland.

  Tess hovered in the hallway, wondering what to do. She couldn’t very well just bounce into Suite 17, with her hair falling and rumpled and her dress all wrinkled, now could she? She paced a little, rubbing her upper arms with nervous hands. What was she going to say to Asa? To her mother? How was she going to explain being gone all night?

  She was still in the clutches of this disturbing dilemma when the door of the rooms she didn’t dare enter swung open and Rod’s head popped out.

  “Where the devil have you been?” he demanded, in a hoarse, furious whisper.

  Tess prayed that Keith’s brothers wouldn’t come out of their suite and speak to her. If they did, all sorts of errant conclusions would be drawn. “I don’t have to tell you!” she whispered back.

  Rod looked back over his shoulder once and then came out into the hallway. His voice was still low. “You owe me a debt, little sister. I told Father and Olivia that you had already gone to bed. Fortunately for you, they didn’t bother to confirm the premise.”

  Tess gave a sigh. “Rod, what am I going to do?”

  “First you’re going to get your bustle into your room—our newlyweds are still sleeping—and then you’re going to repay me by calling on Cynthia and Cedrick Golden.”

  There was no point in arguing. And she couldn’t stand there in the hallway all morning, in a dress she had obviously slept in, with her hair all atumble. Besides, she needed to wash her teeth, and her skin felt grubby and she was hungry.

  “All right,” she agreed.

  She reached her room in moments, her heart hammering as she closed the door behind her and pulled off her dress and underthings in awkward haste. Having done this, Tess put on one of her new wrappers, one of soft, golden corduroy, and let down her hair. She walked sedately across the hallway, to the bathroom, and took care of her morning ablutions, then went back to her room.

  Twenty minutes later, she entered the suite’s small dining room, wearing a crisp black sateen skirt and a white shirtwaist, to join her family for breakfast. To please her mother, she had even swept her hair up into a loose knot at the top of her head.

  “Our daughter is a vision,” observed Asa fondly, squeezing Olivia’s ready hand. There were already plates on the table, and steaming chafing dishes contained scrambled eggs, patties of sausage, riced potatoes.

  “She radiates virtue, doesn’t she?” observed Rod, lifting his coffee cup to his mouth and glaring at her over the rim.

  Tess colored richly—let them all think that she was embarrassed by praise—and took her place at the table.

  “Today we’ll look for your shop,” Asa announced, loading his plate with a small mountain range of scrambled eggs and potatoes. “Livie is looking forward to the fresh air. Always loved a carriage ride, didn’t you, dear?”

  “Tess and I have plans for today,” Rod replied flatly, and his brown eyes, still fixed on her face, dared her to say otherwise.

  Tess swallowed hard, suddenly not feeling hungry at all. But before she could speak, Olivia unwittingly interceded in her behalf.

  “Oh, couldn’t you change them? If we don’t go to find a shop for Tess, Asa will make me rest all day!”

  Asa looked at the small hand on his arm and then at Rod. “I think you could change your plans,” he said evenly.

  Tess tensed, sure that Rod would spitefully proclaim to all and sundry that he’d found her pacing the hallway at a disgraceful hour. And she knew that she had to appease him, somehow, in order to avert disaster.

  “Couldn’t we call on dear Cedrick and Cynthia tomorrow, Rod?” she asked sweetly.

  He looked petulant and quite undecided. “Why not tonight?”

  “They’ll have a performance then, I suspect,” Tess sang back. How docile she sounded, how submissive to the superior wishes of her brother. She could almost have thrown up. “Please, Rod? Tomorrow?”

  He deliberated, scowling now, turning his coffee cup in its saucer. “All right,” he finally conceded grudgingly. “Tomorrow.”

  Tess bent her head, to hide her relief, and picked delicately at her breakfast.

  It was the best of luck and the worst of luck that they found just the perfect shop within an hour of leaving the hotel. It was a narrow little building, with three tiny rooms upstairs, a privy out back, and lots of potential. The photographer who owned the place sold it complete with a variety of cameras, developing supplies, and outstanding accounts.

  “It’s so grim,” breathed Olivia, looking up at the cobwebs netting the low ceiling. “Oh, Tess, to think of you living and working in this place—”

  Tess was in love with every dusty, shabby inch of the tiny shop. After all, it was, or would be, hers, and that one shining fact went a long way in making up for its shortcomings.

  Asa and Mr. Lathrop, the previous proprietor, had gone across the street, to the bank, to make arrangements. Rod remained to “look after” the women, and he looked as disdainful as Olivia did. Touching the small, pot-bellied wood stove and then scowling at the dust that clung to his fingers, he said, “Doesn’t look lik
e such a prosperous enterprise to me. You’ll be starving in six months.”

  Tess dared not annoy her brother, not yet. He might still decide to tell Asa and Olivia that she hadn’t been in her room the night before. “Nonsense,” she said cheerfully. “The place just needs a good cleaning and a little paint, that’s all. If Mr. Lathrop hasn’t done well, it’s only because the shop wasn’t kept up properly.”

  “If you say so,” sighed Rod, philosophically, but his eyes were laughing at her. Lord, how he enjoyed having her at such a disadvantage.

  Which accounted, of course, for the bad part of her good luck. Now that the shop had been found, and purchased, he could insist that she visit those disturbing Golden people with him. No doubt, he would even expect her to fawn over Cedrick.

  Tess clamped her lips down tight. She would call on the Goldens—that was the bargain. But she would not cow to them, no matter what Rod threatened to do. Explaining that she had walked into someone else’s suite and fallen asleep on a couch would be better, ever so much better, than having to make up to Cedrick Golden.

  On the other hand, how bad could it be, just calling on the Goldens, on a bright spring afternoon? They would have tea, they would talk a bit, Rod would smoothly call attention to his abilities as an actor. And then they would go back to the hotel and Tess could start making plans for her shop, real plans. Asa knew about business—she would ask his advice on bookkeeping procedures, things like that.

  By the time Asa returned, Olivia was looking alarmingly tired and very drawn. Solicitously, her husband saw her home and tucked her into bed.

  Tess was in the suite’s kitchen, brewing tea for her mother, when Rod joined her. How smug he was, smiling that way. Leaning against the doorjamb with his arms folded across his chest.

  “Wear something pretty,” he said.

  Tess colored with annoyance, but she held her tongue until she could speak in civil tones. Which was almost a full minute. She looked down at her skirt and shirtwaist.

  “What’s the matter with—” she began.

  “You look like a schoolmarm,” Rod broke in.