Angelfire

by Linda Lael Miller

  That Colin would not be forgotten.

  She saw him again, standing on the very edge of the cliff, and even though he was only a stone’s throw from the lighthouse and carrying a lantern, the lashing of the wind and rain, coupled with the darkness, reduced him to a small, wavering shadow.

  “Colin!” Bliss cried, knowing that she was dreaming, but unable to awaken herself. “Colin, I’m here—come to me!”

  He was only seven, and he was a daredevil, loving above all things to show off. He balanced on the brink of the cliff, lifted his lantern high, and turned on one heel. “Look, sister!” he cried gleefully as Bliss crept toward him, her arms outstretched, the rain stinging her eyes and the wind stealing the breath from her lungs. “Look at me! I’m a lighthouse!”

  “Colin,” she whispered, in desperation.

  And at her whisper, he fell. For long, agonizing moments, she fell with him, spinning round and round in the mist, too frightened to scream, knowing that the jagged rocks were coming ever closer.

  With a shriek, she sat up, gasping for breath. She was soaked with sweat and her heart filled her throat, beating there like an enormous drum.

  Jamie’s hands were gentle on the sides of her face, his thumbs smoothing away her tears. “There now, Duchess,” he whispered. “I’m ’ere, and what was that all about, anyway?”

  With a hoarse sob of relief, Bliss flung her arms around his neck and held on tight. “Oh Jamie,” was all she could manage to say. “Jamie, Jamie.”

  He held her close until she’d stopped trembling, then gently pressed her back onto her pillows. He fetched a cloth from somewhere and dried her face of tears and perspiration.

  “Tell me,” he urged.

  Bliss squeezed her eyes shut, hating to entertain the memory even long enough to tell Jamie what had happened all those years ago. “There was a storm,” she finally forced herself to say. “Papa sent my brother, Colin, out to fi-find me. He was playing—beside the c-cliff—”

  She couldn’t go on, but Jamie understood, she could see that. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Oh God, Duchess, I’m sorry.”

  Bliss wept miserably, for Colin, for her grief-stricken mother, who had run away soon after the tragedy, for her angry father, for herself. She was drenched in sweat from head to foot, and with light, deft hands, Jamie divested her of her satin bloomers and camisole to go on drying her with the bit of cloth. His touch and his presence were soothing.

  “Don’t leave me,” she whispered just before sleep took her.

  “No chance of that,” Jamie answered without hesitation.

  The dream did not come again, but it left a raw place inside Bliss, as it always did, a hollowed-out, hurting place. When she awoke in the morning, she felt depleted and weak, and she was alone in the bed, though she could hear Jamie’s voice through the closed door of the bedroom.

  She just couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  Feeling a sudden and strange tension, Bliss tossed back the covers and swung her bare legs over the side of the bed. She crossed her arms over her naked breasts, certain that she’d gone to bed in her satin underthings.

  Then she remembered Jamie’s arms holding her tightly after the dream, Jamie’s hands taking off her camisole and drawers when it truly seemed the clothes would smother her for sure, Jamie’s voice telling her that he was there with her. That she was safe.

  Such a feeling of love came over Bliss in that moment that she knew she could never go to America, never leave Jamie. She might just as well drain the blood from her veins as try to live without him.

  A woman’s laughter sounded from the room beyond. Frowning, Bliss found one of her new wrappers, a favorite of lavender corduroy, and put it on. Then, after pushing her hair back from her face, she opened the door and went out.

  Jamie and Peony were sitting at a small, round table, which they’d dragged over into the light of the largest window, eating breakfast and chatting like any happily married couple. For that matter, Mrs. Ryan had yet to dress; she was wearing what appeared to be a peignoir of embossed satin. Even though she was sitting down, Bliss could tell that the garment accented every luscious curve.

  She felt sick as she thought of Jamie and that woman together, and she swayed a little as she closed her eyes and struggled for composure.

  It was at that moment that Jamie saw her, and he had the gall to behave as though everything were normal and right. “’Ello, Duchess,” he said happily. “Ready for some breakfast?”

  Bliss couldn’t bear it. He’d comforted her so tenderly, and then left her to go to this woman, either in a nearby suite or this very one ....

  “Duchess?” Jamie prompted, sounding worried now.

  Bliss looked around desperately. Since her blue satin slippers were handy, she picked them up and flung them, first one, then the other. They bounced, in turn, off Jamie’s broad chest as he came closer and closer.

  Chapter 15

  THE EXPRESSION IN JAMIE’S EYES WAS ONE OF ANGRY BEWILDER-ment, but Peony seemed to understand Bliss’s fury. She rose from her chair, fidgeting with the tie on her beautiful green wrapper, and said, “It’s not what you think.”

  Jamie looked back at Peony in annoyance. “And what is it that she thinks?” he snapped.

  “I can speak for myself, Jamie McKenna,” Bliss flared. “You needn’t go asking somebody else how I feel about things!”

  He sighed, and a tiny muscle in his jawline twitched, then went still. “All right, Duchess,” he said evenly, “’ave it your way. What the devil’s goin’ on in that erratic little brain of yours that would make you throw your shoes at a man? Answer me that!”

  Bliss jutted out her chin. “You have your fair share of brass demanding answers, Mr. McKenna!” she retorted. “How dare you flaunt your mistress under my nose like this!”

  “I’m nothing of the sort,” Peony interceded, fixing Bliss with a cool glare, “and I’ll thank you to remember that, young lady.” With these words, she swept into the suite’s small second bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

  Bliss swallowed and made herself meet Jamie’s gaze. She waited for him to shout and rage at her, but he didn’t. He gave her a look that made her feel small and silly, and then he turned around and walked out of the suite, pausing only to collect his hat and coat.

  It was all Bliss could do not to run after him and beg him not to be angry with her. How it galled her that she wanted to do that, when he was the one who’d transgressed!

  She glanced toward the door of Peony’s room. She felt so confused, and though she wanted to believe the woman’s words, every jealous nerve in her body told her otherwise.

  Bliss turned her attention to preparing for the day. She intended to seek out Mrs. Wilmington, the American widow, and be interviewed for the position of companion.

  Never mind that she no longer wanted to live in America. It was obvious enough that Jamie was never going to be a real husband, and love him though she did, Bliss refused to overlook infidelity. Nor would she live in a house he provided, catering to his every whim like some besotted concubine, existing only for the crumbs of attention he deigned to toss her way.

  She found Mrs. Wilmington in the dining room, having breakfast, and with that good lady’s permission, Bliss joined her. It seemed that nothing could affect her appetite; she was famished. She ordered bacon and eggs with fried potatoes and toast and summarily charged the meal to Jamie’s bill.

  Not that he’d care, one way or the other.

  Mrs. Wilmington, clad in a daunting amount of black sateen, broke into Bliss’s fretful thoughts with an announcement. “I have decided to leave for Sacramento in precisely one week.” She sighed, her sizable bosom jutting out over her platter of eggs, beef hash, and pancakes. “It’s so difficult to think of sailing away without my dear Piedmont.”

  Bliss was sympathetic. After all, she had been bereaved herself. She nodded gently.

  The elderly woman drew in a brave and quivering breath. “Nonetheless, one
must go on, mustn’t one? Tell me, my dear young woman, have you any references to show me?”

  Bliss dropped her eyes for a moment, then brought them firmly back to Mrs. Wilmington’s face. “No, ma’am,” she said. “I’ve never worked, except for my father. He’s a lighthouse keeper, near Wellington, and I used to help him.”

  Mrs. Wilmington permitted herself a stiff nod. “That would do little to fit you for a lady’s companion, of course,” she pointed out.

  Bliss wasn’t willing to be termed unfit for a job any half-wit could do. She favored the old woman with her most dazzling smile. “What would be required of me, please?” she asked sweetly.

  A serving girl brought Bliss’s breakfast and set it before her as Mrs. Wilmington answered, “Why, of course you’d be expected to accompany me about the ship and tend to my clothing.” She paused. “And to read to me, of an evening. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, you know.”

  Bliss said nothing. If she didn’t swallow a few bites of her breakfast, her stomach would be grumbling in another minute.

  Mrs. Wilmington watched her curiously for a moment, then asked, “Have you fallen upon difficult circumstances, my dear? I was certain you told me you were employed by a gentleman and his wife—”

  Bliss nodded, barely able to keep from laughing out loud. She didn’t know which was funnier: hearing Jamie called a gentleman or Mrs. Wilmington’s obvious conviction that her prospective companion was a starvation case.

  The lie sprang easily to her lips, as lies will when they’ve been told before. “Yes. I am Mrs. McKenna’s maid.”

  The old woman’s cold blue eyes swept over Bliss, taking in her neat coronet of cinnamon-colored hair and the simple blouse she’d ferreted out of her satchel to wear for the occasion, along with her tweed skirt. “Something about your story doesn’t ring true, miss,” she said briskly. “Nonetheless, I like you.”

  “Thank you.” Bliss was ashamed to be telling such outrageous stories, and she longed to spill out the whole disgraceful truth about herself, but she didn’t dare. If Mrs. Wilmington ever suspected that she was married, the position would be irrevocably lost.

  “I’ll expect a written reference, then, from your Mrs. McKenna. Just have it sent to Room Thirty-six, please.”

  Bliss’s heart had stopped beating, and she nearly choked on the food she’d been chewing, not only because she was supposed to deliver a letter of recommendation but because Jamie had just entered the dining room with a group of gentlemen.

  Even though his clothes provided a rough contrast to the suits and vests his companions wore, he wasn’t the least bit self-conscious. In fact, Bliss noted irritably, the other men seemed to defer to him.

  “Are you all right, Miss Stafford?” Minerva Wilmington demanded, looking stern. Evidently, she would not tolerate anything less.

  Bliss nodded, reddening a little and ducking her head. If Jamie happened to see her, all would be lost. However, since Mrs. Wilmington was about to leave the table, Bliss had to rise to her feet. Good manners compelled her.

  “I’ll be looking for that letter of reference,” the old woman said, and her black sateen dress crackled and rustled as she walked imperiously away.

  Bliss sank back into her chair and then risked a glance in Jamie’s direction. She instantly regretted the action, for her gaze locked with his. Without looking away, he spoke to his companions and rose from his chair.

  In a few strides, he was standing beside Bliss’s chair. “Hello there, Duchess,” he said in a voice that gave no indication of what he might be thinking or feeling. “Climbing out windows again, are you?”

  Bliss glared at him. “I am not a prisoner, Jamie McKenna, and I will not be treated as one. Mrs. Wilmington is a—a friend.”

  Jamie’s eyes held a mischievous light as he bent toward her, one hand resting on the back of her chair, the other idly holding that scruffy hat against his thigh. “Aye,” he agreed, in tones of mockery, “I’m sure you and that good woman ’ave a great many things in common.”

  Bliss folded her hands in her lap, her breakfast forgotten, and sat up very straight in her chair. Her chin was at a stubborn angle and she looked through Jamie rather than at him. “It just so happens that we do,” she lied. “I believe I’ll call on my Aunt Calandra this morning, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind,” Jamie said. He had not straightened up, and his breath ruffled Bliss’s hair. “I ’ave important business to see to today, and I don’t want to be worryin’ about what mischief you might be stirrin’ up.”

  Bliss simmered with resentment, but there was little she could do. “I suppose you’re planning to shop for a suitable cage for me to live in,” she hissed.

  Jamie chuckled and shook his head in wry wonder. “You’re a bristly bit o’ baggage, Duchess, that you are. What you need is a good tumble in a warm bed—and I’ll see to that when I get back from doin’ me business.”

  Slowly, thoughtfully, Bliss refilled her teacup from the pot in the center of the table, and then she tossed the contents onto Jamie’s midsection. “Oh!” she cried in pretended horror as he leaped backward in shock, “do excuse me for being so clumsy!”

  Bliss wanted to laugh at the fury she saw snapping in his azure eyes, but she didn’t quite dare do that, so she bit the inside of her lip and reached for a napkin. Jamie stepped out of reach when she would have dabbed at his wet shirt in reparation.

  “You’d best be grateful,” he rasped in an outraged whisper, “that I’m not a man to do a lass violence!”

  Bliss slapped one hand over her mouth in an effort to stifle a burst of amusement. She couldn’t think why she found Jamie’s anger so funny, but she did. Perhaps, she reflected, this compulsion to laugh was a form of hysteria.

  “I’m sorry,” she squeaked.

  Jamie smiled at her—actually smiled—as he took hold of her elbow and brought her to her feet, but his eyes were still glittering like bits of blue topaz. “Come along, dear,” he said, forcing the polite words past his teeth. “You and I are going to ’ave a little talk.”

  Bliss was not afraid, for she couldn’t imagine Jamie hurting her physically, but she was embarrassed. The dining room was utterly silent as everyone there watched her being marched away like a public drunk, and Bliss’s cheeks flamed bright pink. “It isn’t like the tea was hot or anything,” she pointed out under her breath.

  Bliss sniffled once, knotted one hand into a fist, and pounded at her pillow. The scathing lecture Jamie had delivered earlier was still ringing in her ears.

  She thrust herself onto her back, suppressing an urge to kick both her feet in unrestrained rage. The worst part was that Peony had heard everything, and been there to see Jamie order Bliss off to their room like a naughty child.

  Seething at the memory, Bliss got off the bed, stormed to the door, and peered out. There was no sign of either Peony or Jamie, to her relief.

  She crept to the desk near the door and took out a good supply of hotel stationery and a pen and ink, then sneaked back to the bedroom again. Seated in the window seat, where she could look down on carriages and people passing by in the street, Bliss began composing a letter of recommendation. She would sign it “Mrs. James McKenna,” which was both the truth and a lie.

  Hours had passed by the time the letter suited Bliss. She could only hope that Mrs. Wilmington would not have occasion to compare the identical handwriting of the real Mrs. James McKenna and the mythical one until after their ship was far out to sea.

  In the distance, Bliss heard a door open, and here were all those discarded, crumpled pieces of paper on the floor, evidence of forgery. She leaped out of the window seat, hid the letter of recommendation under a cushion, and frantically gathered up the wadded pages.

  “Bliss?” The voice was Jamie’s. She scurried behind the screen that hid the facilities and heaped the papers in the commode. Then, with one of the matches Jamie used to light those infernal cheroots of his, she lit the pyramid of paper on fire.

&nbs
p; It was going up with a whoosh when Jamie came around the screen. He swore and covered his eyes with one hand when the blaze licked at the wall behind the commode and then ebbed away to nothing, leaving bits of black ash everywhere.

  “What were you tryin’ to do, Duchess?” he asked, after regarding her in disbelieving silence for several long moments. “Burn down the place, or signal the rest of your tribe?”

  Bliss wrinkled her nose in puzzlement. “Who?”

  “All those other redheaded gremlins who ’elp you think up crazy ideas.”

  Bliss drew a deep breath and let it out again. “There is only me,” she said seriously.

  “Thank God for that,” Jamie muttered, shoving a hand through his hair. “To think I came back ’ere to ask you to forgive me—”

  Bliss’s eyes went round. “You did?”

  “Aye.” He folded his arms stubbornly. “Of course, that’s all changed now. What the ’ell were you doin’?”

  Bliss bit down on her lower lip, running mental fingers along the shelves of her mind in search of a believable answer. “I was writing a novella,” she said at last.

  Jamie looked both wary and skeptical, and his arms were still folded. “About what?” he wanted to know.

  Bliss dropped her eyes. “It’s a love story,” she confessed, with feigned shyness. “About you and me.”

  It was a mark of his male vanity, Bliss thought later, that he believed her.

  During supper, when Jamie left their table temporarily to go and speak to some people on the far side of the dining room, Bliss flagged down a waiter and pressed her letter of recommendation into his hand. “Please see that this is delivered to Room Thirty-six,” she whispered.

  Peony, who was sitting across the table, looked every bit as bored and irritable as Bliss felt. “What are you up to now, Mrs. McKenna?” she asked dryly.

  Bliss shrugged. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Peony Ryan anymore. The woman seemed to have too much pride to ever stoop to being a man’s mistress, and yet her relationship with Jamie was obviously intimate, emotionally if not physically.