Painted by the Sun

by Elizabeth Grayson

  How could she tell him even part of the truth without Cam guessing the whole of it?

  "I've always thought," he observed in that deep, beguiling voice, "that the wisest place to start anything is at the beginning."

  Shea gave the slightest of nods. Back in the days when Cam had been a lawyer instead of a judge, surely these walls had heard secrets far more damning than the one she had to tell.

  She straightened in her chair before she spoke. "Then I suppose I should start when my sister and I left Ireland." Cam inclined his head, and Shea's voice became stronger as she remembered. "I was just sixteen when my sister Mary Margaret and I signed papers with an agency that guaranteed girls from good families passage to America and jobs when we arrived in New York."

  She could almost see the day they sailed, how the mists hung low over those green, green hills, how the wind had whisked the bay to whitecaps as they spoke their good-byes. There were only the three of them left of a family of eight: Jamie standing with his new wife, determined to make his way in Ireland; proud, practical Mary Margaret, clutching her valise and impatient to be off; and Shea, not knowing where she belonged or what she wanted. It wasn't a teary good-bye. They'd wept too much over other tragedies to squander tears on a simple parting.

  Shea glanced across at where Cam sat watching her, his head tipped a little to one side as if he were listening to more than her words.

  "But poor Mary Margaret," she went on, "for all her excitement at coming to America, fell ill our third day at sea and died the morning after. I arrived in New York alone to take up what had been my sister's adventure.

  "The agency placed me as a housemaid with a family that lived near Washington Square. It wasn't a bad life, really. I didn't mind the work, and Mrs. O'Halloran, the housekeeper, saw we got enough to eat. But I missed my sister; I missed my family."

  It was the first time she'd understood what loneliness was.

  "I was having a good, loud weep about it out back of the carriage house not long after I arrived, when the coachman came to say I was scaring his horses. Michael was his name, and he gave me his handkerchief."

  That handkerchief had smelled of sweat and hay and horses, honest smells she'd come to associate with her father and her brothers and home. It had made her cry all the harder, and Michael had moved in on her like she was one of his high-strung strutters. He'd put his arms around her and let her cry herself out against his chest.

  "So you fell instantly in love with this coachman," Cameron prodded her.

  Michael had been a lovely man. Wiry and quick and dark-haired, with wonderful eyes—rich, warm brown that crinkled at the corners.

  "No," she answered after a moment. "I didn't fall in love with him; we became the best of friends. We'd walk out together in the evenings or sit on the back steps. He'd tell me about all the fine places the mistress went for tea, or about the countryside up north of the city where the master had holdings. It was a pleasant life. But then the war came—and the war changed everything."

  With the mention of the war she saw the darkness creep into Cam's eyes, and when he spoke she could tell it was from that raw, cold place inside him. "War changes everything."

  She leaned across and gently touched his wrist, speaking as if she were waking him from a dream. "Cam," she said gently. "I know the war changed the world for you, but you've come a very long way since then."

  He nodded after a moment, his gaze lingering on her as if he were grounding himself. He nodded slowly. "Go on," he murmured. "Tell me the rest."

  Needing to put some small distance between them, she set her cup on the pile of books between their chairs and pushed to her feet. She crossed to the desk and turned to him. "Early in the war, everything seemed exciting and glorious. Parades went past the house. Several of the footmen enlisted. Then the reality of it all set in. Casualty lists went on and on. There were calls for more and more men. Riots swept the city when they began the draft."

  "And Michael?" he asked as if he were anticipating her story or had heard its like before.

  "He finally had to go." She twined her arms across her midriff, trying to gather her courage for what she had to admit to him. "The night before he was to leave, we sat together on the steps one last time. It was a lovely spring evening. The air was warm and I could smell the lilacs blooming at the back of the garden. Michael tried to be brave, but I could see how afraid he was. I wanted to hold and reassure him, but that wouldn't have been seemly there on the steps. So we went to his room above the stables."

  Shea tightened her fingers around her arms and bowed her shoulders, curling in upon herself. Now that she'd begun, she needed to say the words before she lost her nerve. "We sat together on his little cot. I held onto him as hard as I could. He kissed me and I kissed him back. In the end—well—in the end we made a child. By the time I realized what we'd done, Michael was dead, killed at Cold Harbor."

  "And they fired you from your job when they found out about the baby." Cam didn't even phrase it as a question.

  "Mrs. O'Halloran said she was sorry, but she couldn't condone what I'd done. I didn't know a soul in New York when they cast me out, but I'd saved enough of my wages to get a room. I did piecework until my little Liam was born, but afterward I fell ill..."

  She retreated to the far side of the desk. She could feel the sun beating through the window at her back, but it did nothing to warm her. No heat could penetrate the cold, hollow places in her heart. No tears could wash away the shame of what she'd done or the longing she felt for her child.

  "It was winter," she whispered, "I had no money for food or heat. My landlord turned us into the streets. Finally, I couldn't feed my child anymore."

  She looked down at her hands, the hands that had held and bathed and soothed her precious boy. The hands that had laid her little Liam on the steps of a foundling home nearly eleven years before.

  As if he'd heard the sob worming its way up her throat, Cam rose and went to her. He grasped her shoulders as if he could will her the strength she needed to concede the rest of it.

  "If I'd kept him—" she whispered, "—he would have died."

  Cam gathered her up in his arms.

  "I didn't want to leave him at the foundling home."

  "I know."

  She panted for breath. "I loved him so much."

  "I know."

  She'd stood within sight of the foundling home and looked into her son's face for the very last time. She'd caressed his feathery brows and lashes, his petal-smooth cheeks, the bow of that sweet baby mouth. She'd nuzzled him one last time, breathed his scent and brushed his forehead with her lips. Then she had taken him where she knew he'd be safe.

  The sobs rose in her throat, choking her. Cam spread his big warm palms against her back and sought to pull her against him.

  She didn't deserve the comfort he was offering, didn't deserve to have his arms enfold her, didn't deserve the bulwark of his strength to lean on. Shea tried to twist away as the sick, raw anguish ran through her. But as hard as she pushed against him, he bound her effortlessly against the length and breadth of his body.

  She struggled for a space, crushing her face into his shirtfront, giving vent to her grief and guilt that was as fierce and raw as it had been the day she'd given her son away.

  Cam held her without saying a word, swaying on his feet, rocking her as if she were a child. He stroked her hair, her shoulders, the length of her back. Gradually she melted against him, resting her head against his shoulder, accepting his comfort.

  When she had quieted, he bent close against her ear. "It must have taken such courage to give up your child."

  For an instant Shea couldn't think, couldn't even draw breath. How could he say such a thing to her? Didn't he realize she'd given her baby away?

  She raised her head, seeking censure in that strong, dark face, in those fathomless blue eyes. Instead there was understanding and tenderness.

  His deep, liquid voice poured over her. "Don't doubt for a mo
ment that what you did was right. You gave your child life a second time."

  Those few softly spoken words all but brought her to her knees. Her heart twisted inside her. Fresh sobs tore up her throat. She wrapped her hands in the folds of Cam's clothes and clung to him.

  No one had ever understood how much giving up that baby had cost her—not even Simon. No one knew that the first thing she thought about when she opened her eyes was that child, or that she ended each day with a mumbled prayer for his welfare. No one knew that every year she marked the day he'd been born—and the day she'd given him away.

  Tears she'd been saving since that night outside the foundling home spilled down her cheeks. They were tears that threatened every time she saw mothers and children together, tears she'd swallowed as she photographed each of the orphan train children. She could let them loose after all this time because Cam knew, because he was still here with her in spite of the desperate deeds she'd confessed to him.

  What she'd expected from him was condemnation, and what she'd found was absolution. She'd expected denunciation and found benediction. She wasn't sure she deserved what Cam had given her, but she was more grateful than she'd ever be able to tell him for what he'd offered her this afternoon.

  Still, there was the rest of the story to tell, and Shea's last and most closely guarded secret to protect. She stirred against him, pushed away. This time he let her go.

  "After I'd given little Liam up," she said, pacing the breadth of the window alcove, "I didn't care what happened to me. I wandered the streets, and one night I took refuge from a storm in the doorway of a photography studio.

  "Simon found me there the next morning. I was half frozen to death and terribly ill, but he refused to let me die." Shea pressed her hands together at her waist, remembering Simon's gaunt form bending over her, remembering his determination that she would live. "When I was better, he gave me a job at the studio. Over the next months we came to love each other, and gradually I told him everything. Once we were wed, I went back to reclaim little Liam."

  Shea shuddered as she recalled the cold, barren office where she'd waited at the foundling home, and the spare, dour woman who'd come to speak with her.

  "What happened?" Cam murmured.

  She shifted on her feet, her muscles burning with tension, her throat closing again. "He wasn't there," she choked out. "They wouldn't tell me where he was. They said I had no proof I was his mother."

  His deep, soothing voice rolled over her. "But you've kept searching."

  "Every day," she whispered, conceding the vow she'd made years before. "Since then I've visited every orphanage in New York, talked to dozens of matrons, and held hundreds of children in my arms."

  "How long was it before someone told you they'd sent your Liam west on an orphan train?" he asked softly.

  Her gaze rose and clashed with his.

  He knew. And if he knew about the orphan trains, what else might he be astute enough to discover?

  "How did you..."

  "I saw the newspaper clipping in your locket when you were ill." Shea's hand flew to her throat. "You showed me the photographs you'd taken of all those children, children from the orphan trains. What else was I to think?"

  He'd seen things in her she hadn't expected anyone to see, concluded things she hadn't thought anyone would figure out. Could he possibly have deduced the last and most devastating part of her secret—the part that touched him and his son?

  The pulse throbbed in her throat as she stood staring at him. Her hands curled into fists. Would he ask about the rest? Would he ask her about his son? And if he did, could she tell him the truth, or would she lie?

  But Cam didn't ask. He came toward her instead, curled his hand around her shoulder, seeming intent on questions of his own. "If you find your boy," he asked instead, "what is it you mean to do about him?"

  That question had become as much a part of her in these last days as the child himself, but she was no closer to having an answer now than she had been that night in the kitchen.

  "It would be easier to cut out my own heart than to give Rand up," Cam declared softly, but with a fierceness in his face that hinted at the kind of soldier he must once have been. "I can't imagine that it would be much easier for anyone else who'd taken in one of those children."

  Shea had known that claiming Rand would have been like depriving Lily of sustenance, depriving her of breath. She could see now that taking her boy from Cam would tear a hole in his heart that would never mend.

  What was she going to do when she found her child?

  Shea did her best to frame her answer so it lay at the threshold of truth. "What I set out to do was find my son and make a life with him. But after seeing you with Rand and how Rand is with you and Lily, I realize it will never be that simple."

  She shrugged out of Cam's grasp and went to where her teacup sat forgotten on the pile of books. She put the cup to her lips. The tea was cold and bitter on her tongue, but no more bitter than the truth had been.

  She was separated from the Gallimores, the people who had come to mean so much to her, by the very thing that bound her to them. Her son.

  She set her cup aside. "So there's my tale. It's a long and maudlin story, I'm sorry to say. But you did ask to hear it."

  Cam came to stand over her as she pulled on her jacket and prepared to go. "You did the right thing, Shea. I hope one day you'll find your boy."

  She stood for a moment, her throat knotted tight, trying to think what she should say to him. He'd given her so much this afternoon, understanding and tenderness—and even the absolution she'd been seeking so desperately. What he hadn't been able to offer—what there might not be anywhere in the world—was resolution.

  She raised her gaze to his, looked into his eyes. "Thank you," she whispered. They were the only words she was able to speak as she turned to leave. But even if she said them a thousand times, she knew they'd never be adequate for what he'd done for her today.

  * * *

  French silk rustled and the heavy scent of gardenia perfume wafted through the studio as Shea ushered the subject of her last sitting of the day toward the door.

  "I think you'll be very pleased with the portrait, Mrs. Greene," she offered, easing one of Denver's most prominent matrons into her fur-trimmed pelisse.

  "You come very highly recommended, my dear," the woman answered, adjusting her hat, "so I doubt I'll be disappointed."

  "I expect the picture will be ready at the first of the week. Shall I have someone bring it by your house?"

  "Send that boy I read about in the newspaper, if you will. I'm surprised he isn't here with you this afternoon."

  "I expect he's just getting out of school," Shea said, though in truth Ty wasn't attending school, and Shea hadn't spoken more than a dozen words in a row to him in a fortnight.

  He'd been staying away from the studio, staying away from her since the day she and Cam had gone looking for him. Except for seeking him out at the bottom of the steps while he was waiting for Rand, she wouldn't have known whether Ty and his father were still in Denver.

  The boys had been going off together every afternoon, running Ty's errands or hanging around the livery stable helping Mr. Johanson. Rand usually returned to the studio rosy-cheeked and windblown just in time to meet his father for the ride back to the farm. He sometimes came back dirty, and once his trousers had been ripped at the knee, but neither she nor Cam had questioned him about it. Rand was giving Ty the friendship he seemed so hungry for, and Ty was teaching Rand a kind of self-sufficiency he never would have learned in his life at the farm. Shea suspected their afternoons together were as good for one of the boys as it was for the other. If Cam was concerned about how they spent their time, he never let on.

  After Shea had seen Mrs. Greene to the door, she crossed to the desk and leafed through her appointment book. Every sitting was taken from now until Christmas, a phenomenon Shea was sure she owed it to the article that had appeared in the newspaper follo
wing the opening. She and Cam had become heroes of sorts for what they'd done, though she would have given up the notoriety, and the appointments as well, if she'd been able to have Ty where she could keep a better eye on him.

  Sighing, she pushed back a handful of curls and headed for the darkroom. Taking care to knock before opening the door, she stuck her head inside.

  "How are you coming?" she asked.

  Owen turned to her, looking frazzled. No matter what he was like outside it, Owen was almost never frazzled in the darkroom. This small, smelly room lit only by a single spirit lamp was his domain, his empire.

  He broke off his tuneless humming to answer her. "Too much work!" he complained.

  Shea couldn't help laughing. "There's no such thing as too much work."

  "There is," he argued, then pointed to a two-inch-high stack of finished prints. "They need colorin'."

  Painting colors onto that many prints was a daunting prospect, even for Shea. "I'll work on them all evening," she promised, glad for something to keep her occupied.

  Owen had nearly surprised the life out of her a few days after the studio's opening by informing her he intended to move into Emmet Farley's spare room. When she had been able to catch her breath to ask him why, he'd explained.

  "It's not proper."

  "You don't think it's proper for us to be living here together?" she'd asked incredulously. "But, old dear, we've traveled thousands of miles, just the two of us."

  "Save your reputation."

  "I'm not worried about my reputation. How can you be, after all this time?"

  "It's different here," he insisted.

  "In town, you mean?"

  He'd nodded his head, leaving Shea stunned and a little hurt by his defection.

  "And you'll be comfortable living with Emmet?"

  Owen had lowered his head just the way he had in the cabin that day at the farm. "He understands," Owen murmured.

  Something had changed for Owen when he and Emmet had swooped down to offer Cam a very particular kind of shelter after he'd confronted Sam Morran. In offering up that part of himself, Owen had taken a step away from who he'd been. He'd taken a step away from her. Going to live with Emmet was taking another step.