Matt had bent to pull her away when suddenly Drayton’s chest heaved in a short, rasping gasp. Everyone who stood about him froze, watching in fascination as he began to breathe again. For a time, he took only shallow, unsteady gulps of air, with long gaps in between. But he was breathing again. He was alive!
Ambrosia cradled his head in her lap, anguishing over each breath he drew, feeling her own lungs ache with the effort it took. His eyes fluttered open once and a moan parted his lips. Then he lapsed into unconsciousness once more.
It seemed forever before his breathing assumed a normal rhythm; even then it was broken by fits of coughing. Ambrosia glanced up when Matt placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve brought a doctor.”
The man who knelt beside her and opened his satchel was old and wrinkled, his brow deeply lined. He lifted Drayton’s eyelids and checked for his pulse, then listened to his chest. “He’ll live,” he told her simply. “But that leg of his will take some tending.”
Still cradling his head in her arms, Ambrosia bit her lip hard as the doctor brusquely cut away the lower trouser leg, revealing a long, deep gash just below the knee. The flesh about the wound had been charred or blistered, and would need to be cleaned and bandaged properly. She watched as the doctor merely wrapped it in a piece of cloth, knowing that it demanded closer attention. She found Matt’s eyes again. “I want to take him home,” she told him firmly. “To Elmwood. I’ll be able to care for him properly there.”
With hardly a hesitation, Matt gave a nod. ‘’I’ll get the carriage.”
Ambrosia’s hand brushed tenderly over her husband’s brow and down his cheek, silently mouthing his name. His hair was singed, his flesh scorched by the heat, his hands blistered, his shoulders...
She stopped the doctor as he began to rise. “The other man-Bryson,’’ she questioned him, knowing that Drayton would ask about him the moment he came to his senses. The doctor glanced over his shoulder, then met Ambrosia’s eyes again and shook his head. ‘’I’m sorry.” Ambrosia bit her lip, her brow furrowing as she looked down again at Drayton’s face. “It’s all right, darling,” she whispered, ‘Tm going to take you home.”
Chapter 51
Drayton regained consciousness only briefly during the next three days. Ambrosia made certain that his leg wound was cleansed and properly bandaged, that his bums were treated with aloe after being sponged gently with cool water. He was feverish those first days, but his strength returned quickly as his wound began to heal. Still, he would need to stay off his injured leg for some time.
While still confined to his bed, he insisted on speaking with Matt, asking him to make inquiries as to whether or not Aaron had been released from prison, and telling him to inform the authorities that the fire had most likely not been an accident. He did not voice any of his suspicions to Ambrosia, however. Indeed, after he had talked with Matt, he said nothing to anyone about the fire.
Within a week he was out of bed and making his way clumsily about with the help of a pair of crutches. He spent a great deal of time with Mandy, who called constantly for her “papa.” It was no wonder he was her new favorite. He acted very much like a child himself, playing games with her, building tall towers of brightly colored blocks that she gleefully knocked down. He asked her questions, listened solemnly to her garbled responses, repeated silly rhymes to make her laugh. The two of them shared secrets and conspired more than once to steal cookies from the kitchen the moment sour-faced Sarah was elsewhere. Sheba, though fully aware of their schemes, always looked the other way with a wide grin curving her generous mouth. Once when Ambrosia caught them sharing a still-warm oatmeal cookie just before dinner, Mandy’s blue eyes met hers without remorse. She pressed her tiny forefinger to her mouth and warned, “Sh-sh!” while tossing a wary glance over her shoulder and looking so very much like her father that it was all Ambrosia could do to hold back a smile.
A week flew peacefully by, then another. They were the happiest days Ambrosia had ever known. Though Drayton insisted on sending Debbs to town every other day to keep close contact with Tom Landon and Tim MacGregor, and though he spent some time in the library each evening going over the paperwork, there was still a fullness to the days he spent at Elmwood that Ambrosia had never even dreamed of. Every night after dinner she dressed Mandy for bed, then took her to the library to say good night to Papa. More often than not, Drayton began a story about a beautiful princess and her handsome prince, who saved her from a fearsome giant and lived happily ever after. Ambrosia would listen to the story as well, smiling as Mandy yawned and nodded sleepily on her Papa’s lap, as he bent to press a kiss to her dark hair. It was a side of Drayton she had only glimpsed before, the man who was meant to be a father. She was falling in love with him all over again, she realized one afternoon as he spoke to her about his childhood, as he spoke of Lily, as she watched him limp about the garden chasing butterflies with Mandy. It was as if all the harsh, ugly words and past mistakes had been forgotten, left behind in the fire. It was as if they had never tried to hurt one another, as if they had just begun.
If it hadn’t been for the brief, unguarded moments when Drayton’s brow furrowed with troubled thoughts, when his eyes showed a deep, secret pain, Ambrosia might have allowed herself to believe that their new beginning would last forever. She might have thought that he would remain at Elmwood with her and Mandy, leaving the business to his partner and the warehouse foreman, corresponding with them regularly, perhaps visiting them occasionally. If only there hadn’t been that restlessness to him, that anxiety he was so quick to hide from her. If only there hadn’t been the nightmare.
He had it nearly every night, sometimes several times in a single night. Ambrosia would waken when he began to gasp for breath, when his body went tense and rigid beside her. Even as she watched him, beads of sweat would break across his brow and he would shake, as if with a violent chill. His eyes would fly open then, ablaze with a terrible scene that played over and over in his mind. And he would scream a single word-”Kathryn!’’-again and again, terror constricting his throat, tears splashing across his cheeks, eyes darting wildly about the room until he found his way back to the present, to reality. Afterward, though he held Ambrosia tightly, though he pressed his mouth to her hair and often times made love to her, he said nothing about the dream and carefully avoided the unspoken questions he must have seen in her eyes.
Nearly four weeks had passed since the fire when Matt Desmond paid a brief visit to Elmwood to check on Drayton’s recovery. Ambrosia bid him a cordial welcome, then left the men to discuss their business in the library. When she saw Matt leaving some time later, Ambrosia returned to the library and found Drayton staring distantly out the window, leaning on a single crutch. She closed the distance between them and slipped her arms about his waist, pressing her cheek to his broad back. He took hold of her arm and pulled her about to face him, pressing a brief kiss to her brow, smiling at her though the distant, troubled look remained in his eyes.
“What did Matt Desmond have to say?” she asked as lightly as she could, wishing that his eyes were not so serious.
“Nothing much.” He let out a sigh and released her, limping across the room, leaning only lightly on the crutch. His leg was healing quickly now, she thought as she watched him take a seat behind the desk. He lifted a few of the papers scattered here and there, as if he was looking for something in particular.
Ambrosia ignored the gesture of dismissal. “He must have said something. He was here nearly two hours.’’
Drayton let out his breath and met her eyes with a touch of impatience. “He reminded me of my obligations to Rambert Paints, something I’ve forgotten lately, something I can’t really afford to forget.’’ He saw the mixture of fear, pain, and anger beginning in her eyes and faced it squarely. “Matt wanted to know when I plan to move back into the city,” he went on more slowly. He paused. “I’m leaving tomorrow, Ambrosia.”
Tomorrow! The words cut cleanly through her heart. Tomorrow. Her life was crumbling about her. She had to hold it together! ‘’You can’t leave tomorrow,’’ she cried. “You-you’re leg isn’t healed yet.”
He shrugged, unconcerned. “I’m getting around well enough. I have responsibilities, Ambrosia. Obligations...”
She was about to argue with him, but something in his eyes made her stop. There was a distance there, a holding back of the truth. And it had always been there, she realized, even when he made love to her. He had taken her gently, passionately, with tenderness, with fury. At times when he reached for her, she felt his need so strongly, felt his very soul reaching out for her. But never once had he told her that he loved her. Never once in all the times he held her and touched her and possessed her. Never once.
And now she was losing him. Perhaps she had never really held him at all. She looked away from his eyes, no longer able to face what she saw there. She heard him rise and make his way to her side. He lifted her chin and searched her face.
“You don’t have to leave here,” she said finally, her words brittle in spite of her efforts to soften them. ‘’You could stay here and-’’
“And travel back and forth every morning?” His fingers moved in a light caress over the squared line of her jaw. “Perhaps someday, when there isn’t so much work to be done. But I’ve been away over a month, Ambrosia. There’s simply too much waiting there for me to do. And with my leg the way it is...’’ He vented a sigh and turned away from the accusation in her eyes. He went again to contemplate the view from the window. “It won’t be like before. I’ll be coming to Elmwood regularly to visit.”
To visit, she thought, feeling a terrible emptiness inside. It would not be the same. It would never be the same if he left. His work would be his life. He would never manage enough time with his “visits” to achieve any real intimacy. And this would never really be his home. “You could sell the business, Drayton,” she said softly.
He whirled about to face her, his eyes angry and accusing. “And do what?” he demanded. “Stay here and while away the hours without any purpose? Live the useless life of a country gentleman while I squander my inheritance?” He shook his head. “I’m not that kind of man, Ambrosia.”
Ambrosia hesitated, sensing that her next words would drive a deep wedge between them. Or perhaps, she thought briefly, it would only reflect the one that was already there. “You were a doctor once, Drayton. I think that a part of you will never be anything else.”
He stiffened, almost as if she had struck him, but she went on, her eyes brightening with tears.
“You told me so yourself. You said that you ran away from your memories, from Kathryn...” For an instant his face twisted with an emotion so strong, so overpowering that she almost stepped back. Instead she lifted her hand to touch his cheek. “Aren’t you still running away?”
He turned away from her searching eyes and drew a long, calming breath. “What are you running away from, Drayton? What is it you’re so afraid of facing?”
He said nothing for a time, then she saw him square his shoulders and turn back to face her. “I will never go back to medicine, Ambrosia. And I won’t discuss this with you anymore.’’ He slipped a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face to kiss her. The gesture held a gentleness his words had not, but when he withdrew and met her eyes again, the last traces of anger were gone. “I must go, Ambrosia. Please try to understand.’’
She bit her lip hard and forced a nod, then held tightly to him as his arms pulled her close. He kissed her deeply, intimately, a kiss meant to dispel any lingering uncertainties stirred by the harsh words of moments before. But as her arms slipped about his neck and she returned that kiss, she felt little of the reassurance he had meant to give. Tomorrow he would leave her to return to the life he had built without her. And she was very afraid that he would never be coming back.
Aaron Rambert tossed his last silver dollar to the aging barmaid and accepted the bottle of cheap whiskey without seeing the odd look she flashed him. He brushed l! speck of lint from the soiled sleeve of his rumpled coat, failing to notice the deteriorated condition of his once fine clothing. He was in a world of his own, a world where nothing mattered but finishing what he had started years ago. Tonight, he thought as he sipped at his whiskey, Drayton Rambert would die as he ought to have died in the fire before the war, as he ought to have died in the house in Gramercy Park. Aaron started to check his watch, then recalled that it, like all his possessions, even the rest of his clothing, had been sold to buy whiskey...and a gun. He would have to wait until nightfall anyway before he left this tavern and went to kill him.
His dark eyes were glazed and distant as he looked about the small, ill-lit tavern and remembered that night so long ago, the night he’d learned that his stepfather planned to write him out of his will and leave everything to his blood son, to Drayton. Aaron had stopped here that night, before going on to the white clapboard house, before setting it aflame...
He took another long swallow of his drink and grimaced at the taste of cheap whiskey. He had come full circle now. Again he was desperate; again he had come to destroy Drayton Rambert’s life. But this time, he wouldn’t fail. This time he wouldn’t leave anything to chance. He’d been watching the house for over two weeks now, ever since he’d learned Drayton escaped the fire in Gramercy Park. His mouth quivered with unchecked emotion as he thought of that house, his mother’s house, going up in flames. Aaron hadn’t wanted to set that fire. But he’d been forced to do it. It had been the only way he could think of to kill his stepbrother.
He drained his glass and poured himself another, his jaw setting with grim resolve. Tonight Drayton wouldn’t escape. Tonight Aaron would confront him with the gun he’d purchased especially for the purpose of seeing him dead. And then he would set the grandest fire of all, a fire that would see Drayton’s body, and everything the man had ever cared about, turn to smoke and ash. Vengeance, Aaron thought with a slight smile playing about his mouth, would be sweet...and complete.
Dinner was a quiet affair that evening, and what little talk Drayton and Ambrosia shared seemed stilted and forced. Tomorrow. Ambrosia thought again and again as she picked at her food, he would leave her and Mandy to escape the troubling memories that haunted him. He was running away from something she didn’t understand, from a part of him he didn’t want her to understand, or even see.
Drayton declined dessert and rose from the table with out touching his coffee. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I excuse myself early tonight. I’m anxious to look over some of the papers Matt brought by this afternoon.” He bent to kiss the side of her neck and smiled. “I’ll be in the library. You will bring Mandy down to say good night before she goes to bed? If I plan to leave first thing in the morning, I’ll need to say good-bye.”
Ambrosia lowered her eyes, unable to face him as she gave a nod. She felt his fingers, warm and strong, take brief hold of her shoulders as he brushed his lips across her hair. And then he left the room.
Ambrosia blinked back a tear as she swallowed the bitter lump in her throat. He would expect to make love to her tonight. An ironic gesture of farewell to the life he had chosen to walk away from. How she longed to reveal her anger, her helpless frustration at the prospect of his leaving. She almost wanted to turn away from him, to deny him, to hurt him as he was hurting her. But she loved him too much to hurt him now. And tonight she knew she would give herself totally to him, holding back no part of heart or soul, even though she knew that he would leave her tomorrow with nothing but broken dreams. But perhaps he would remember what they shared tonight and someday, someday he would come back to her. She must cling to that hope now. It was all that was left to her. Emily was just finishing Mandy’s bath when Ambrosia dismissed her for the night. Ambrosia took her time getting Mandy ready for bed, trying to prepare herself for good-bye. Mandy yawned and rubbed a small fist over one eye.
“Papa?” she mouthed with sleepy expectancy. Their good-nights had become a part of her bedtime ritual, but tomorrow-
“Yes,” Ambrosia answered her softly, pushing the thought from her mind. “We’re going to say good night to Papa.’’
Chapter 52
Drayton lit a lamp in the library after he had been there only a short time. The shadows were falling earlier now, and the nights were cool with the first stirrings of winter. He sat at his desk again and looked over the papers Matt had left him that afternoon, though his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking of the heartbreak he had seen in Ambrosia’s eyes when he told her he was leaving. He vented a weary sigh, wanting more than anything to stay here. But the memories of his past, of the night that had cost him everything, suddenly had the upper hand again just as they had before the war. The pictures haunted him, infesting his dreams, filling him with guilt and despair. He could not stop them or push them aside. They confronted him no matter where he turned. Even when he looked at Mandy he found himself thinking of the child Kathryn had carried, the child who had died in her womb. It was almost as if the fire a few weeks ago had triggered something in his head, something he could not begin to control, something he had to escape somehow, somehow...
He left the desk and limped across the room to get himself a much-needed drink. He took a long swallow of the whiskey, his eyes closing against the thoughts that tormented him. He had to find some way to escape the memories. He would go insane if he did not escape, at least for a little while. Ambrosia had been so right when she had accused him of running away. He set the empty glass aside and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Suddenly a sound seemed to fill the silence of the room.
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