by Shirl Henke
His hot, seeking mouth shifted position, slanting across hers at another angle as he pulled her yet closer, pressing his lower body against hers, pinning her against the wall until she could feel every muscle and bone. The swell of his sex probed against her belly, bringing forth a pooling heat, so long dormant, to spread in radiating waves as her starved young body remembered love. Rebekah heard the piteous whimpering yet did not recognize it as her own until he broke off the kiss abruptly.
Rory was losing control, drowning, drawn into the vortex of past remembrance, sweet remembrance. He itched to tear away the wisps of silk that clung so lovingly to her breasts and savage them with his mouth, to shove up her skirts and feel the velvety heat of her envelop him once more. Witch! What had begun as an attempt to punish her was ending as an exercise in self-torture. He pulled away, tearing a few strands of golden hair that clung to his fingers.
They stood a scant foot apart, staring into each other's eyes, revealing even in the murky darkness of the moonless night more than either wished the other to know. Panting for breath, shaking, they moved farther apart in silence, Rebekah sliding along the wall, Rory stepping back. She felt the sting of her torn hair. One heavy coil fell onto her shoulder. Breaking the hypnotic spell, she reached up and began to straighten the coiffure.
Easier for a woman to compose herself than a man, he thought bitterly, grateful darkness shadowed the still rampant erection straining to be free of his tight dress breeches. Damn, but he ached with wanting her! And she had wanted him, too, he knew it. “Old Amos must be a neglectful lover,” he said softly. “Perhaps I should have carried you into the British Ambassador's topiary and screwed you soundly.”
The barb struck home. Even though he could not know about her husband's impotence, Rebekah gasped in outrage at his crudity. Pain drove her to fury. Her hand flew out, delivering a stinging slap that rang out over the music from inside the embassy. “Don't you ever come near me again, Rory Madigan—or so help me God, I'll set the police on you!”
“Don't make any more promises you aren't able to keep, darlin’,” he taunted.
Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “You're a fine one to talk of broken promises, you cheap Irish trash. Everything my father said about your kind was true!” She watched the fury darken his blue eyes and his jaw clench. For a moment, she thought he was going to strike her back. She braced for it, but the blow never came.
“You chose well—you're every bit the bitch to match a bastard like Amos. I'd wish you joy of him, but it seems he's given you little satisfaction.” An evil smile curved his lips as he looked scornfully at her.
Rebekah turned away and dashed toward the sanctuary of the embassy, wanting to die of shame for her brazen display, for her weakness, for his cruelty. And most of all, for their lost love. As she stepped through the door, his voice cut across the void between them.
“We'll meet again, Rebekah. And you will come to me. That's one vow I'll never break.”
* * * *
Nevada, 1874
Virginia City had always been an unbelievably ugly place to Patrick Madigan's way of thinking. He looked at the steep mountains towering above the town, bare and bleak, as raw as the disfiguring holes the mines had gouged in the earth. San Francisco—that was his town, with its wide streets and steeply rolling hills, situated high above the aqua-green grandeur of the Pacific. The violence and gaudiness had been bred out of the city by decades of civilization and permanence. Permanence was a virtue he believed Virginia City would never achieve. Even with its big brick buildings, there was always a look of instability about the town that never slept. That very insomniac frenzy indicated its tenuous hold on existence.
“You've grown too whimsically philosophical, Patrick, my man,” he muttered to himself, chuckling as he stepped away from the big bay window in the offices of Madigan & Madigan, Ltd. He had arrived yesterday to handle a timber contract for Rory while his younger brother was off in Washington. Would their parents ever have believed it—their youngest son a United States congressman?
Of course, Rory's election meant more work for both of them, but then work was all his brother lived for—work and revenge. Where had that carefree boy of childhood memory gone? After their parents and Sean died, Rory had been bewildered by the sudden tragedy, heartbroken to be separated from Ryan and him, but hopeful of their reunion. Their little brother had always been the most buoyant optimist.
Something—someone—had changed him. Even though Rory had tried to keep it secret, on one rare occasion when they sat up and drank late into the night, he had let down his guard and had told Patrick about her. Rebekah Wells. The beautiful young preacher's daughter who had thrown him over for Amos Wells' wealth and prestige. His brother's pain was like a festering wound that healed over but remained putrid, eating away deep inside. Rory's obsession grew, an obsession to eventually bring Wells' empire crashing down about his ears—to utterly ruin the man. And the man's wife.
Patrick, too, wanted Wells brought to justice. But Patrick saw in Rory's hate a dangerous cancer that would destroy him as surely as it destroyed their common enemy. And Amos Wells was their enemy. The ruthless greed of the silver kings and their banking cohorts was responsible for their brother Ryan's death.
Ryan had died in a mine shaft explosion deliberately set by the men who owned controlling interest in the mine. The practice was not unusual, especially on the Comstock, where mining speculations had reached frenzied heights—or depths, depending on one's point of view. Patrick had always thought California politics none too clean, but as one wag had said, “If California in '49 was the vestibule of Hell, then Nevada in the '70's was the throne room of Satan himself.”
Unscrupulous mine owners often suppressed the news of a rich strike so they could buy up all the market shares cheaply. To keep word of a new vein from getting out before they cornered the market, speculators would either hold the miners prisoner underground with bribes, or failing that, set upper-level explosives to seal off the lower reaches of the shaft temporarily. The word of such a “disaster” would further depress stock prices for the bankers and mine owners. Now and then, an explosion went awry, and the men trapped below were suffocated or gassed to death before help arrived to free them. Patrick had learned that was what had happened in the mine where Ryan died ten years earlier, but he had never been able to prove anything.
He had gone searching for his elder brother as soon as his ship docked in San Francisco harbor. He had located the Silver Lady mine where Ryan had been employed—two weeks after his brother had died in an explosion. Patrick had wandered numbly around Virginia City for several days as rescue workers dug out the bodies. While grieving, he had indulged in a bout of drinking in the local saloons. That was where he heard the whispers about how the owners, in collusion with the California banking crowd, had intentionally set the blast.
When the Silver Lady reopened, Amos Wells and his cohorts made a fortune. Patrick swore he would find proof one day, but first he wanted to return for the younger brother both he and Ryan had promised to retrieve.
By the time Patrick arrived, Rory had already left St. Vincent's, swallowed up in the boundless vastness of the West. Heartsick, Patrick had returned to San Francisco and set to work building his shipping empire. He hired agents to search for the youth; but Rory had vanished without a trace—until a cocky young horse breeder from Nevada delivered a fine racer to his town house one day four years ago.
If only Rory could forget his obsession with Wells' wife. He needed to concentrate on ferreting out evidence about Wells' criminal activities while they both were in Washington. Patrick misliked having Rory so near Rebekah during his term in Congress. What would happen if the two accidentally met? Or worse yet, what if Rory sought her out? He pushed the disturbing thought from his mind and sat down at his brother's big desk to dig through the piles of business correspondence.
“No sense borrowing trouble,” he sighed to himself.
* * * *
&nb
sp; Washington
Rebekah sat in the center of her big, lonely bed, unable to sleep. Her jaw still ached from the blow Amos had delivered on the way home from the embassy earlier that evening, but not half as much as the other, more judiciously considered, blows he had given her in the privacy of her bedroom—blows to her body in places where no one would see them but Patsy. After all, she was his ornament, and one must not break such a beautiful bauble.
Bernice Gould had practically trampled her way through the press of guests to whisper to Amos about how his wife and the new Nevada congressman had danced so scandalously close and then slipped from the ballroom into the secluded garden. Amos was livid. She had lowered herself to consort with riffraff and made him a laughingstock. Her public display was even more heinous than if she had broken her marriage vows and let Rory do as he had so crudely put it—taken her right there in the ambassador's topiary.
She felt unclean, thinking of her husband's brutality and her former lover's cruelly mocking words—and fiery, punishing kiss. “He's right. I do still desire him. I would've let him do whatever he wished with me.” She shivered and hugged her bruised ribs. Suddenly, unable to bear being alone in her mockery of a marriage bed, Rebekah threw back the covers and rose. The pain from her beating made her wince as she drew on a robe. She walked over to the window of their big brownstone, which afforded a splendid view of the capital; but the beauty of the city did nothing to soothe her troubled spirit.
Rebekah tiptoed into Michael's room where his nanny slept on a pallet near the door. Amos had insisted on a wet nurse for him and then had hired a series of nurse-governesses, freeing the boy's mother for their arduous social calendar. At every turn, she defied him as much as she dared, slipping away from other duties to squeeze in precious moments with Michael. Kneeling beside his bed, she surveyed his beautiful little face.
He would be four years old in the spring and was already beginning to look like his father. Soon, this baby bed would be too small. She reached down and gently ruffled his inky-black hair. How fortunate, at least, that Amos, too, was dark, else he might have disowned the boy. As it was, she feared Michael's growing resemblance to Rory would create problems eventually. Amos had threatened her with boarding schools in cold, distant Massachusetts.
“It's only a means of keeping me in line. He won't separate us, darling. I promise.” She leaned down and kissed her son's forehead, then watched as he snuggled over on his side and sucked his thumb. What would Rory think if he could see his son?
The question came out of nowhere. She had not considered it since Michael was a newborn, but meeting Rory tonight had triggered all her old hopes and fears. He must never learn about the boy. Already, Michael was a pawn in the ugly struggle between her and Amos. She would not let Rory try to use him as well. “I'm sure he doesn't give a damn about Michael. He's probably left a string of children from New York to San Francisco.” She was only another in a long series of foolish girls who had succumbed to his charms.
Rebekah rose and went in search of some warm milk to lace with laudanum. When she was desperate for sleep, she used the evil stuff sparingly. Amos had had the physician in Washington prescribe it for her nerves in a blatant attempt to addict her, which almost succeeded before she realized his scheme. She had grown so dependent that it cost her weeks of agony to overcome the craving. By sheer force of will, she succeeded. After that, he realized that his control over Michael was a sufficient threat to hold her in line. He did not need the laudanum.
But tonight, she needed something to assuage her pain, which was far beyond the mere physical aches of her beating. Amos had beaten her before, although not often. The physical pain she could endure, but the sort that Rory inflicted with his cruel words—that pain she could not withstand. The worst of it was that after all the years and treachery that stood between them, she had come to heel like his creature.
I was his creature, but no more! She moved through the long empty corridors of the big house, headed toward the kitchen. The sound of several voices carried from Amos' study. It was late, nearly three a.m. Whatever kind of clandestine meeting her husband was having at this ghastly hour, she did not want to know. Amos was involved in all sorts of shady dealings with other members of Congress and high-ranking cabinet officials in President Grant's administration. She soundlessly passed the heavy walnut door, but then a stranger's voice froze her in her tracks.
“You're certain Madigan won't be a problem? He's been nosing around the capital ever since he arrived, asking discreet questions about your connection to the mining lobby.”
“That Irish upstart! He's nothing, I tell you. A one-term congressman elected by his fellow mickeys. A fluke because Bradley won the governorship. They'll both be gone come next election.” Amos pronounced.
“I just don't want any trouble in the meanwhile,” another voice interjected. Rebekah recognized it as belonging to a senior congressman from California who was a crony of Amos'.
“Have you spread word about the new vein in the Kettle Creek Mine?” the stranger asked.
Amos chuckled. “Rumor has it the mother lode is ten feet wide and deep enough to mine to China.”
“Good, good. How soon will it be safe to begin unloading that worthless Kettle Creek stock?”
“I'd wait another week or two. We're holding the miners underground—bribed them with free whiskey and whores. Everyone in the know will think there's a really big strike. I figure stock prices should triple in two weeks,” Amos replied.
“Let us hope so. My banking friends in Sacramento expect to maximize this—er, investment in Kettle Creek,” the California congressman added.
“Only be certain your new Nevada congressman and his troublesome brother don't get in our way. Patrick Madigan has had agents trying to link us to his elder brother's death for years. Now that he has a foothold in Congress through the younger brother—well, I don't like it.” The stranger's voice was petulant. “It was an ill day when those two were reunited.”
“If the Madigan brothers become a danger, we have ways to take care of them. Out west we know how to deal with troublemakers,” Amos replied in an ice-cold tone. “Don't fret, Stephan.”
Stephan! Stephan Hammer—an undersecretary in the Department of the Interior. So he was part of Amos' corrupt ring that got rich by manipulating mining stocks illegally. And they were threatening Rory—and his brother Patrick.
Patrick wasn't dead after all! Hearing the sounds of chairs scraping, Rebekah realized that the meeting was breaking up. She hurried around the corner and down the hall to the kitchen, where she sank onto a hard-backed chair and tried desperately to think.
Amos was utterly ruthless. She had always known that. And he had been involved in the death of Rory's brother Ryan. Had Rory set out to seduce her because Amos was courting her? It seemed farfetched, yet it was possible. Seeing him at the embassy made the deception easier to credit. He had been so cold and sarcastic, a distant stranger with newly acquired wealth and polish.
“Let them kill each other,” she whispered in the still kitchen. But in her heart she knew her words rang false. Whatever else he was, Rory had never been a criminal. He fought his own battles. He would not stoop to hiring assassins. But Amos would.
Out west we know how to deal with troublemakers. Rebekah forgot about the milk and painkillers. She hurried back to her room to write a note.
* * * *
Rory crumpled the brief, cryptic message in his fist. Why would she send him a message warning him that Amos was watching his activities? Be wary, she cautioned.
“I'm damn sure it wasn't for love of me,” he said to himself bitterly, downing another swallow from the glass of brandy. He stared broodingly at the fireplace grate, empty of logs during the warm fall evening.
“Wells probably put her up to it—to scare me off. No doubt, her penance for creating gossip by dancing with me. He probably even heard we slipped outside for an indiscreet amount of time.” But Rory did not want to remember how s
he had felt in his arms again after all the years. He had sworn to make her beg, to come to him as a supplicant. If his loss of control that night was any indication, he would never succeed.
“Damn you, Rebekah Sinclair!” He threw the balled-up note into the empty fireplace and drained his glass.
Chapter Thirteen
Wellsville, May, 1878
After the mourners offering condolences had departed, only the immediate family remained at the parsonage with Ephraim. Amos had urgent business in the capital and quickly made his excuses, instructing his brother-in-law to escort Rebekah to the Flying W the next morning. Leah and their two sons were staying at the parsonage with Ephraim for a few more days. As her sister bustled her young boys upstairs for bedtime, Rebekah watched enviously.
She has them with her all the time while little Michael is a continent away from me. The ache of loneliness filled Rebekah. The pain had been a constant companion over the years. She went into the kitchen to straighten up after her mother's funeral dinner, but found the church ladies had put everything in Dorcas' kitchen back in better order than her own daughter could have done. Ephraim had held up well during the last days, but only another who secretly grieved could recognize the anguish he held so deeply inside himself.
Standing at the kitchen window, she watched her father walk around to the opposite side of the church, where the graveyard lay. When he did not return as dusk began to settle, she went after him. Ephraim was kneeling at the side of his wife's grave.