Ashes and Ecstasy
Page 33
“Actually, that was my next question,” he said, his quiet tone frightening her more than if he had screamed at her. His eyes blazed in his face as he glared at her. “I’m waiting for an answer.”
Gathering her courage, she called his bluff. “It is yours, naturally.”
Now he exploded. “Naturally? Naturally!” he roared, toppling his chair over as he leaped to his feet to tower over her. “Woman, I can count, and I am not a moron! What makes you so sure this child is mine?”
“What makes you think it is not?” she countered.
“Damn it, Kat! You and I both know what went on between you and Jean!”
“I know. You are just guessing!” she snapped.
Reed let out a roar of frustrated rage. “I ought to break your neck!” he raged.
At this point, Mary called down from an upstairs window. “What is going on down there? For heaven’s sake, you are screaming like a couple of banshees! Kate can probably hear you at Emerald Hill!”
But Kate had already arrived. She stood framed in the doorway. “Kate heard it all,” she said softly, gaining their attention. “Keep it up, Reed,” Kate stated with dignified anger, “and Kathleen’ll lose this babe, jest as she lost yer first. Think about it. Think how ye would feel, having killed an innocent child in the womb. It happened once b’fore, when yer jealousy overruled yer good sense!”
Reed glowered at Kate. “Then, the child was mine. This time, there is definite reason for doubt.”
Kate stood firm. “Even if thet were so, there is an even chance thet the babe is yers. Do ye want t’ risk endangerin’ the life o’ one o’ yer own offspring, and thet o’ its mother?”
Reed ground his teeth together so hard that Kate heard it from where she stood. His face was dark with fury, and his hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides. He scowled down at his wife. “You have until the babe is born, Kathleen. If the child resembles Jean in any way, I shall throw both of you out of this house, and you will never set eyes on either Katlin or Andrea again!” he warned. “In the meantime, you will continue to abide my rules. You will be a demure and obedient wife, doing my bidding and seeing to my comforts as a proper wife should. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
“Clear as crystal,” Kathleen answered evenly, with an answering glare of her own.
With a last glare at the two of them, grandmother and granddaughter, Reed stormed off the veranda. “Tell Mother I will be home when she sees me!” Minutes later, they heard him racing down the drive on his big black stallion, he and Titan hell bent on destruction.
It was three days before Reed returned, red-eyed, unkempt, and horribly hung-over. His clothes, badly wrinkled, were mute testimony that he had worn the same outfit the entire time. Grunting an unintelligible greeting to his mother, he stumbled off to bed, where he promptly passed out and slept for eighteen hours. Upon waking, he bathed, ate, and threw himself into his work about the plantation, more surly and uncommunicative than ever.
Mary was distraught, but there was little she could do, since neither Kathleen nor Reed seemed willing to explain their latest row. In view of Kathleen’s condition, she suspected the unborn child had something to do with the problem, but she could not understand why that should be. Reed adored his other two children, and had been thrilled at the prospect of their birth. Perplexed, Mary shook her head in bewilderment and kept her thoughts to herself. When they wanted her advice, they would ask for it. Until then, she would not meddle.
It seemed Sally had no sooner left then she was back again, adding to the already disastrous tension at Chimera. She had evidently forgotten her anger at Reed, and forgiven him for laughing at Peg-Leg’s nasty little song. Isabel, now doubly protective of Kathleen, took every opportunity to annoy the girl and keep her out of Kathleen’s way. For the most part, at least within Reed’s hearing, Sally was behaving herself. Upon learning of Kathleen’s pregnancy, however, the girl went into a private snit, obviously displeased and perturbed at this turn of events. Only Reed’s cool attitude toward Kathleen gave Sally continued hope.
Reed, infuriated by the thought that Kathleen might be carrying Jean’s child, redoubled his attentions toward Sally. Purely out of revenge, and to hurt Kathleen, he courted the girl openly though only he and Sally knew that the relationship stopped short of actual intimacy.
Kathleen was miserable. Added to the discomfort of morning sickness, the weather was oppressingly hot and humid. Too, she was convinced he was continuing his affair with Sally, though he still made love to Kathleen nearly every night. Despite his rage at her, he still desired Kathleen, and until her pregnancy prohibited lovemaking, he intended to have her.
“I fail to see why you insist on carrying out this charade, when you can barely stand the sight of me," she declared tersely. “Doesn’t Miss Simpson satisfy your needs?”
“I am a man of varied tastes, my pet,” Reed drawled, trailing long fingers up her inner thigh, “and as long as I am paying for your keep, I intend to have my rewards.”
“You are a devil of the first degree!” Kathleen snapped, biting back a gasp as his wandering fingers found their mark.
Reed chuckled, accurately reading her reaction to his caresses. His dark head lowered to her breast. “I never did like being thought second rate in anything,” he replied, just before capturing the puckered nipple between his teeth.
Kathleen sucked in her breath sharply as the fires coursed through her, the aching need building in her body.
“Tell me what you want, Kat,” he prompted, as her body arched into his. “Say the words!”
Already drowning in desire, she moaned, “I want you, Reed. I need you to make love to me!”
With his hands and his mouth, he tempted her, drawing her ever near that peak of ecstasy, but never to the summit. In desperation, she clutched at him, raking his shoulders with sharp nails. “Now!” she cried. “Love me now!”
He did. With all the skill at his command, his body possessed hers, urging her to follow where he led. As one, they reached for the sun on golden wings, grasping for that elusive final rapture, that unequaled total glory, until they held it shining in their grasp.
“I despise you, Reed Taylor,” she murmured as he pulled her close. “There are times I thoroughly despise you.”
“Ah, but you do it so uniquely, kitten,” he chuckled, “and you purr so adorably while you are about it.”
It was the last comment that prompted Kathleen to wear the ivory collar with the carved ships and the letters KAT at dinner the next evening, the necklace she had found in New Orleans; the one Reed had ordered and never picked up. She had not worn it since Reed’s return. In fact, he was totally unaware that she possessed it.
Reed spotted it the moment she stepped into the room. Gulping down his mouthful of sherry, he rasped, “Where did you get that necklace, Kat?”
“From the jeweler in New Orleans who made it for you,” she replied softly, her eyes watching how his caressed her throat. “At the time, I thought it was your final gift to me. I treasured it as I have no other.”
“It is beautiful,” he breathed, his gaze traveling from the necklace to her face, framed by waves of copper-gold hair. “You are beautiful. It suits you as it would no other woman on earth.”
His admiring gaze drew her to him, until their bodies were but a breath apart. “Kiss me,” she implored on a whisper. “Hold me.”
His arms enfolded her, molding her to him as his lips covered hers in a kiss full of all the wonder and tenderness that had been missing from their encounters for so long. So lovely and adoring was it, that tears misted the long lashes that fanned Kathleen’s cheeks, and she returned his kiss with all the longing and love in her aching heart. Her fingers buried themselves in his ebony hair, and she felt him delve through her shining tresses to hold her lips to his.
It was thus that Sally found them when she entered the parlor. Her dismayed gasp shattered the fragile web of tenderness they had spun about them. Reed drew back, h
is eyes assuming the cool glint so hatefully familiar to Kathleen these days; the gentle moment passed as if it had never been.
The summer festivities continued, and Kathleen buried herself in activities to ease the pain in her heart. Because of her delicate condition, Reed forbade her to ride, or to do anything strenuous that might harm her or the baby. Still, there was plenty to occupy her time.
As the days passed, Sally was once again reverting to type, and thoroughly unpleasant type it was. Isabel and Kathleen decided it was time to take the girl down a notch or two; a few lessons in humility were long overdue.
One day, as Kathleen and Isabel sat talking to Kate, the older woman complained, “I have got t’ mix up another batch o’ hair rinse. Every time I run out o’ it, my hair feels like someone starched it!”
Isabel answered absently, “Sally is always raving about a special mixture she must use for her fine blonde hair to make it manageable.”
Kathleen looked from one woman to the other. Her lips began to twitch, and her eyes to sparkle with devilry. Kate knew that look well. “And what fine piece o’ mischief are ye thinkin’ up now?” she demanded.
“Oh, I have just had the most deliciously evil idea!” Kathleen crowed. “I wonder what would happen if someone put starch in Sally’s special rinse?”
“ ’Twould probably come out stiff as a board,” Kate chuckled dryly.
Isabel laughed. “That would be a sight to see!”
It was a sight, indeed! Sally, having just washed her hair, came running down the stairs, screaming for Reed. Mary came dashing from the parlor, nearly colliding with Kathleen and Isabel. “What do you suppose the problem is this time?” Mary muttered. Then, “Oh, my stars!" she cried, as she caught sight of Sally.
Even Kathleen and Isabel, prepared as they were, were impressed by their handiwork. “Saints preserve us!” Kathleen exclaimed softly. Sally’s once beautiful blonde hair stood out stiffly in every direction, giving her a striking resemblance to a scarecrow. Framing her livid face were a row of short, scorched stubs, where she had evidently tried to correct the damage with a curling iron.
“You did this! You did this!” Sally raved, pointing a finger at Kathleen accusingly. “I know it was you!”
“Whatever are you talking about?” Kathleen asked innocently. “I have not been within ten feet of you all day.”
“I can attest to that!” Isabel supplied. “Kathleen never touched a—a—hair on your head!” She burst out laughing. “Or what is left of it!” she choked out.
The mid-August thunder storm was the worst Savannah had seen in years. Rain poured in torrents from heavy black clouds. The wind roared in from the ocean, tearing down fences, blowing shingles off roofs like pieces of paper, even uprooting huge old trees as if they were twigs. Thunder rumbled down the valleys like the roar of an enraged bear, and blinding lightning sent jagged white spears of fire to earth with frightening vengeance.
The livestock went wild with fear, and Kathleen had spent several arduous hours at Kate’s trying to help settle the crazed, high-strung horses. Then she had driven home in the carriage, fighting her own horses every step of the way, and getting thoroughly drenched.
When at last she dragged herself in the door at Chimera, and collapsed in a heap on the first chair she came to, Reed was livid. “You crazy fool!” he roared. “You haven’t got the sense God gave a gnat! Were you deliberately trying to get yourself killed?”
“Would you have cared, Reed?” she asked wearily. He certainly had not acted lately as if it would have bothered him.
“Cared!” he yelled. “I was half out of my mind wondering if you were lying trampled and bleeding on the road somewhere, or face down in a water-filled ditch! Don’t you ever make me worry like that again!” Kathleen’s teeth, already chattering from her wild ride and soaked clothes, rattled in her head as he shook her soundly.
Luckily, Mary came to her rescue. With Isabel’s help, she soon had Kathleen tucked snugly into bed after a hot bath, a good rub-down, and a bowl of warm broth.
Perhaps it was the storm resounding so furiously outside the window, sending bright shafts of light into the darkened room. Perhaps it was her wild flight through the rain, and her weary muscles protesting their overuse. Whatever it was, Kathleen dreamed of that terrible storm aboard the Emerald Enchantress the night Jean had almost drowned. Again she relived the terror of seeing the spear of lightning strike the mast beneath which Jean stood. With frightening clarity, she watched the canvas come crashing down upon him as she tried frantically to reach him. Through rain and tears, she saw Jean washed overboard as she stood helpless. Arms outstretched, and sobbing in terror, she cried out his name again and again, trying in vain to call him back from the boiling waves.
From afar, she heard her own name being called. The sound came gradually clearer; it was Reed’s voice, strong and angry.
“Damn it, Kat! Wake up!” he shouted, once again shaking her heartily.
Kathleen’s eyes flew open to meet Reed’s furious face. “It is about time you woke up!” he snarled, tossing her back against her damp pillow. “If I’d had to hear you call for Jean one more time, I might have strangled you!”
Still groggy, Kathleen wiped at her wet cheeks, gazing up at Reed in disconcerted wonderment. “I was dreaming . . . ” she muttered in confusion.
“Obviously!” he snapped.
“It was awful!”
Reed laughed harshly.
“It was a nightmare,” she whispered.
“I don't want to hear about your dreams of your lover, Kathleen,” Reed growled.
“You don’t understand! I dreamed Jean was drowning! The storm—the lightning—!” Her hand reached out for Reed’s arm, but he jerked away sharply.
“I said I don’t want to hear it!” he barked.
“Please, Reed! It is not what you think!”
He whirled on her, his face a dark mask of anger. “I will tell you what I think, Mrs. Taylor.” He nearly spat the words at her. “I think I have been a fool to worry about you; to let you get under my skin. But no more, dear wife! No more! I am finished caring what happens to you, and wondering what goes on in that devious little brain of yours!”
“Reed!”
“Not another word, Kathleen,” he warned. “Not one more word, or I won’t be responsible for my actions!” She watched in silent misery as he slammed out of the bedroom.
The August heat did little to ward off the chilly atmosphere at Chimera in the following days. Reed had reverted to his overbearing, antagonistic ways, and Kathleen tried to shield herself from the cold anger reflected in his eyes, eyes that stared at her like two frozen lakes, without a whit of warmth.
Only one thing helped, even while it hurt. Since the night of the storm, Reed had not slept with Kathleen. She discovered that he had been retiring to a spare room just down the hall. Unfortunately, due to servants’ gossip, everyone else was soon aware of this fact as well, including Sally, who made the most of the situation.
“Problems in the marriage bed?” Sally questioned brightly one morning. “I can hardly say that I am surprised.”
Kathleen’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but she held her tongue, determined not to give vent to her irritation.
Sally straightened her skirts, and fussed with the bow at her trim waist. “In a few months, you will have no waistline at all, will you, Mrs. Taylor? You will be swollen and awkward. You must be already unattractive to Reed!” With a vindictive look, she added, “He is all mine now, and I shall do everything in my power to satisfy his manly needs. It will be a long time, if ever, before he requires your attentions again. You might try warm milk at bedtime to help you sleep.”
“And you might try this!” Kathleen snapped, tossing a spoon smartly into Sally’s lap.
The girl raised pale eyebrows. “Whatever for?”
Kathleen scowled. “I hate to see you dig your grave so slowly with your loose tongue. Use the spoon and speed up the job, Miss Simpson!”
Sally smiled superciliously. “No one can force me to leave as long as Reed wants me here.”
Isabel raised one dark brow. “Never say I did not warn you, Miss Simpson. You are out of your class when you challenge Mrs. Taylor, and you will live to rue the day you tried, mark my words!”
Sally was to recall Isabel’s warning many times over, as her life at Chimera became a series of unexplainable accidents and incidents. No one ever knew how the pincushion happened to appear on her chair seconds before she sat down, causing her untold pain and embarrassment; or how that odious toad found its way into her bedsheets; or who put the itching powder in her corset. Then, just as the discomfort of the itching powder receded, Sally somehow came into contact with a patch of poison ivy and spent another two weeks covered with blotches and welts.
She knew Kathleen was behind all of this, but the beautiful mistress of Chimera calmly denied it, and went on about her business as usual. When Sally at last dared to confront Reed, and demanded that he do something about his wife, he grew impatient. “I have more important things to do than to intercede in your petty squabbles, Sally. If you are unhappy here, you are free to leave.”
“But you know she is being deliberately hateful!” Sally whined, turning wide blue eyes up to his.
“I suspect you are right,” Reed answered, casting a shrewd look at the small blonde. “I am also aware that you have been deliberately antagonizing everyone. If you can’t hold your own in a battle of wits with Kathleen, don't come crying to me for help. I am far too busy to be bothered with the nonsense of foolish women.”