Breath of Scandal

by Sandra Brown

  She bent down to give him a hug. “Where’s Cathy?”

  “Store.”

  “So you’re here with Poppy?” she asked as she slipped off her coat.

  “Poppy’s ’sleep.”

  “Asleep?” She headed toward his study, calling his name with increasing alarm when he didn’t answer. “Mitch?”

  Jade drew up short on the threshold of the bookshelf-lined room. Even though she knew he couldn’t hear her, she softly repeated, “Mitch?” He was sitting behind his desk with an open book in his lap, his head slumped to one side, obviously dead.

  That evening, Jade and Cathy quietly grieved together in the room in which he had died, surrounded by the books he had loved. Cathy was so immersed in shock and bereavement that it fell to Jade to handle the business of the burial.

  She notified the chancellor of the college, wrote and issued a press release to the local media, and drove Cathy to the funeral home to pick out a casket. Later, when Cathy retreated to her bedroom, Jade received friends who came by to offer condolences and leave food.

  The wife of a young history professor volunteered to keep Graham until after the funeral. Jade gladly accepted her offer, knowing that he would be constantly underfoot and confused by the comings and goings of so many strangers in the house. Besides, every time he asked where Poppy was, it was like a knife wound to Cathy and her.

  Hank remained close at hand. He ran errands when needed and did all the tasks that no one else could manage. The morning of the funeral, he arrived early. Jade, wearing a black turtleneck sweater-dress and a single strand of faux pearls, greeted him at the door. Her hair was sleekly pulled into a ponytail at her nape and tied with a black velvet bow. The faint shadows of sadness and fatigue beneath her eyes only heightened their deep blue color.

  She led Hank into the kitchen, where she had already brewed a pot of coffee. Handing him a cup, she said, “Cathy’s still upstairs dressing. I suppose I’d better go hurry her along. She can’t find anything. She’s absentminded. They’d been married for thirty-three years, so she feels adrift. They had such a perfect marriage. He was always so…”

  Her voice cracked, her shoulders sagged, and she permitted Hank to pull her into his arms. It felt good to be held. His hands smoothed up and down her back as he whispered words of comfort and solace into her ear. He was warm. The fragrance he wore was alluring and familiar. She liked the scratchy feel of his wool jacket beneath her cheek.

  And before either realized it was happening, the embrace changed personality. As the psychologist had counseled her to do, Jade concentrated on everything that was sensually pleasing, giving no thought to anything except what was favorable and good. To her dismay, she found it all to be.

  Raising her head, she gazed up at him with perplexity. He smiled at her gently, seemingly reading her thoughts. One of his hands slowly moved up to her cheek, and he stroked it with the back of his knuckle. His thumb made two light passes across her lips before he softly kissed her.

  Jade’s heart was tripping madly, but it wasn’t from fear. She didn’t freeze up, nor did she turn away or flinch. Hank raised his head and paused, giving her time to object. When she didn’t, he released a long sigh that spread across her lips before he caressed them again.

  “Hank?”

  “Don’t tell me to stop,” he pleaded.

  “I wasn’t going to.” She took a step closer.

  Moaning, Hank placed his arms around her and drew her closer. His lips nudged hers apart. He raked her teeth with the tip of his tongue. “Jade?” he murmured. “Jade?”

  The doorbell rang. Jade stirred. Hank released her and stepped back. “Goddammit.”

  She gave him a nervous, breathless smile. “Excuse me.” On her way through the house, she reflexively moistened her lips and tasted his kiss. It hadn’t been bad at all. In fact, it had been quite delicious. It was wicked to think such a thing on the day she was burying Mitch, but she couldn’t wait until she and Hank were alone again.

  But when she pulled open the front door, her smile congealed. She stood face to face with one of her rapists.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Myrajane Cowan Griffith couldn’t have looked more affronted if she had been hit in the face with a bucket of cold water. “You’re that Sperry girl,” she said, making it sound like an accusation. “What in the world are you doing here?”

  Jade reflexively gripped the brass doorknob, her eyes fixed on Lamar. The changes in him over the last four years were negligible. He was wearing his hair longer. His body had filled out so that he now looked more man than boy. But his dark eyes were still wary, still nervous, and, as he gazed with astonishment at Jade, still apologetic.

  “May we come in?” Myrajane asked snidely.

  Jade tore her eyes away from Lamar and looked at his mother. Myrajane hadn’t aged gracefully. The nastier aspects of her personality were evident in her face, which was lined and drawn. With an amateur hand, she had tried to camouflage the erosion with cosmetics. The results were pathetic. Her garish blue eyeshadow had collected in the creases of her eyelids, and her lipstick had bled into the cracks radiating from her mouth.

  Jade stepped aside and nodded them into the foyer. With her inexpertly painted lips twitching with disapproval, Myrajane gave her a critical once-over. “You haven’t told me why you’re answering the door to my cousin’s house.”

  “I live here,” Jade replied.

  “Jade?” Feeling wooden, she turned as Hank approached from the back of the house. Myrajane gaped at his ponytail with palpable horror. “I’m Hank Arnett,” he said, extending his hand to Lamar. “Were you friends of Dr. Hearon?”

  “Mitchell was my second cousin,” Myrajane declared icily. “Where is his widow?”

  Her tone of voice implied that the situation was being handled poorly by people unsuitable to handle it at all. “I’ll let Cathy know you’re here,” Jade said, heading toward the staircase. “Hank, if you will…”

  Her voice trailed off as she vaguely gestured toward the living room. Hank was looking at her strangely. Apparently he noticed that something was amiss, but his worst guess wouldn’t have come close to describing what she had felt when she opened the door and saw Lamar.

  Turning quickly, she ran upstairs. On the landing, she pressed her back flat against the wall and crammed her fists against her lips. She pinched her eyes shut, but patches of color burst against her eyelids from the inside. There was a roaring sound in her ears.

  Four years. The impact should have been dulled in four years. But when she came face to face with Lamar, rage had bubbled within her so hotly that she had wanted to claw at his face and pummel his body. She had wanted to hurt him as badly as she had been hurt. Miraculously, she had contained herself, but the thought of being under the same roof with him made her shudder with revulsion. She wanted to wash herself, take a scalding bath, scrub herself as she had done following the rape.

  She had no choice, however, except to bear up. For Cathy’s sake she couldn’t make a spectacle of herself. Cathy needed her today. Moving mechanically, she walked to the master-bedroom door and knocked.

  “Cathy, you have guests downstairs.”

  “Come in, please.”

  Cathy was having difficulty fastening the high collar of her black dress. Jade moved behind her and did it for her. Cathy looked at herself in the mirror.

  “Mitch hated me in black. He said it was too dramatic a color for me.” Inquisitively, she tilted her head to one side. “Do you think he meant that as a compliment?”

  Jade rested her chin on the other woman’s shoulder and pressed the side of her head against Cathy, looking in the mirror at the two of them. “Of course he did. He thought you were ravishing.”

  Cathy smiled tremulously. “Sometimes I forget that he’s gone, Jade. I turn to say something to him, and then I suddenly remember and experience the pain all over again. It’s like a fresh wound, you know?”

  How well she knew. That’s exactly how she had
felt when she opened the door to Lamar Griffith a few minutes earlier. “Myrajane Griffith from Palmetto just arrived. She’s waiting downstairs for you.”

  Cathy was fiddling with the articles on her dresser. “Where’s my handkerchief? I wanted to carry the one Mitch bought me that summer we went to Austria.”

  The embroidered handkerchief was in plain sight. Jade picked it up and handed it to Cathy. “She said she was Mitch’s cousin.”

  “You must mean Myrajane Cowan.”

  “Griffith is her married name.”

  “I’d forgotten. I don’t know her very well. Mitch couldn’t stand her. Her mother and Mitch’s mother were first cousins, I believe. We hadn’t seen her for years, but she’s the type who would have felt slighted if she hadn’t been personally notified. I called her the night Mitch died.”

  “Mrs. Griffith and… and her son, Lamar, were almost as shocked to see me here as I was to see them.”

  Cathy ceased looking for her wristwatch among the scattered items on the dresser. Even in her bereavement, she discerned the hollowness in Jade’s voice.

  “I didn’t leave Palmetto under ideal circumstances, Cathy. There was a… a scandal. I wanted you to hear it from me first in case they say something to you about it.”

  Cathy’s eyes blinked angrily. “They’d better not.”

  “And I don’t want them to know about Graham. No one in Palmetto knows about him, and I have reasons for wanting to keep it that way.”

  “Reasons you can’t share with me?”

  Jade looked away and shook her head.

  “Jade,” Cathy said, reaching for her hand, “Mitch loved you. I love you. Nothing can change that. If I’d known that Myrajane conjured up bad memories for you, I wouldn’t have phoned her.”

  The two women embraced. “Thank you,” Jade whispered.

  Arm in arm they went downstairs and entered the living room. Myrajane was sitting on the edge of the sofa, her posture rigid. Lamar was occupying a chair, looking tense and uncomfortable. Hank was pacing in front of the windows. He looked relieved when Cathy and Jade appeared.

  “Someone else is pulling up at the curb,” he said. “I’ll get the door.”

  Cathy retained hold of Jade’s arm as she moved across the room to welcome Myrajane. “Thank you for coming, Myrajane. Hello, Lamar. Mitch would have been pleased that you came. I believe you already know Jade.”

  “We certainly do,” Myrajane said, giving Jade a censorious look, which Cathy ignored.

  “Jade has lived with us for more than three years,” Cathy said. “Mitch regarded her as the daughter we never had. He adored her, and so do I. Jade, would you please bring in a tray of coffee so our guests can help themselves? Please excuse me, Myrajane. I need to say hello to the new arrivals.”

  As usual, Cathy had adroitly avoided an awkward situation. The Griffiths soon became absorbed with the other guests who arrived to pay their respects before the funeral. Jade was kept busy greeting people at the door and keeping carafes filled with coffee.

  During the funeral service in the campus chapel, she almost forgot the unheralded appearance of Lamar and his mother. Seated next to Cathy, at Cathy’s request, she remained transfixed on the flower-banked coffin. Memories of Mitch drifted through her mind while he was eulogized by faculty members. He had been a respected academician, a devoted husband, a kind and loving surrogate father for her and grandfather for Graham. Their lives would not have been the same without his influence. They would miss him terribly.

  At the grave site, people commended her for being strong for Cathy’s sake. Because her eyes remained dry, no one guessed how much she wept on the inside. The day seemed to drag on interminably. A steady stream of Mitch’s friends and colleagues came to the house to pay their respects to his widow. The crowd didn’t begin to thin out until dusk. By nightfall, only a few guests remained. When they departed, Cathy and Jade finally found themselves alone.

  “I suppose I should go pick up Graham,” Jade said.

  “Why don’t you let him spend another night? They offered. You know he’s being well taken care of. And you’ve been on your feet all day. I know you’re tired.”

  “I’m exhausted,” Jade admitted, sinking down on the sofa beside Cathy and slipping off her black suede heels. “But no more than you, I’m sure.”

  “Actually, I enjoyed talking about Mitch. He meant so much to so many people.”

  Jade reached for Cathy’s hand and held it between her own. “He certainly did.”

  They were quiet for a while before Cathy said, “I failed to notice when Hank left, and didn’t get to thank him for all he’s done the last couple of days.”

  “I sent him away with that elderly couple from Birmingham. They hadn’t gotten a motel room yet and seemed bewildered as to how to go about it. You were with someone else, so Hank couldn’t say goodbye.”

  “He’s a dear boy.”

  “Yes, he is. Very dear.” They were quiet for another few moments, then Jade said, “Thank you for handling the situation with Mrs. Griffith and Lamar. I stayed as far from them as possible until they left.”

  “The spiteful witch managed to intercept me as I was coming out of the bathroom. She gripped my arm and asked if I was aware of the scandal that had driven you out of Palmetto. I told her that if she had anything negative to say about you, she wasn’t welcome in my house.”

  Cathy’s smooth brow wrinkled with concern. “Jade, is it this ‘scandal’ in Palmetto that’s prevented you from having a romantic relationship with Hank?”

  Jade pulled the black ribbon from her hair and shook it free. She studied the black velvet as she threaded it through her fingers. Quietly she said, “When I was a senior in high school, I was raped by three boys. Lamar Griffith was one of them.”

  Although she hadn’t planned on it, the moment suddenly seemed right to tell Cathy. “Myrajane doesn’t know that, of course. All she’s heard is that I was responsible for my boyfriend’s suicide.”

  Once the floodgate had been lifted, the words couldn’t be contained. For almost half an hour they poured out of her. She told the story unemotionally, almost by rote because she had recited it to herself whenever her determination to seek revenge waned. Once her initial shock had worn off, Cathy cried quietly into her handkerchief.

  “Oh, Jade,” she sobbed when Jade was done. “I’m very glad you told me. You shouldn’t have had to bear this alone. This explains so much. How could your mother desert you and Graham?”

  “She doubted my innocence and resented me for not staying in Palmetto and forcing one of the boys to claim Graham and marry me.”

  “My God! How could she even suggest such a thing?”

  Jade leaned forward and hugged Cathy. “You’re the first person who has ever wholeheartedly taken my word for what happened. I know Mitch would have, too. I was tempted to tell you many times. Now I’m glad I didn’t, since Mitch was related to Lamar.”

  “I’m rather glad that Mitch wasn’t here to hear your story, too. He would have—” She broke off and raised her hand to her chest. “Oh, but I wish he were here, Jade. How can I stand never to see him again, hear his voice, touch him?”

  “I shouldn’t have bothered you with my problems. Not tonight.”

  “No, Mitch would have urged you to. It’s drawn us closer together, and he would have wanted that.”

  Jade held her until Cathy’s tears subsided. “I’m going upstairs now, Jade,” she whispered hoarsely as she stood. “Good night.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  Cathy smiled wanly. “No. But I need to be alone… with him… to say my final goodbyes.”

  After she went upstairs, the house seemed inordinately quiet. As Jade went through the rooms collecting napkins and glasses, she thought how glad she would be to have Graham back, generating noise, creating his little whirlwinds of activity. That might alleviate the emptiness that Mitch had left behind.

  She wasn’t sure she could ever go into his study again
without envisioning him there, slumped over in his chair. That would never do, she thought with self-admonishment. She must force herself to picture him perusing one of the books he loved, or walking down the sidewalk hand in hand with Graham, or telling one of his wonderful stories.

  The doorbell intruded on her thoughts. She gave her reflection in the hall mirror a cursory glance before pulling open the door.

  “Jade—”

  She tried to slam the door, but Lamar’s hand shot out and caught it.

  “Please, Jade. Let me talk to you for a minute.”

  She glared at him, her breasts rising and fall with each agitated breath. “Go away.”

  “Please, Jade. I tried all day to find the right time to speak to you.”

  “There will never be a right time. Certainly not today.”

  Again she tried to close the door, but he insinuated himself between it and the frame. “Jesus, Jade, do you think it was easy for me to come here?”

  “I wouldn’t know, you see, because I’ve never raped anyone. I wouldn’t know how difficult or easy it is to face a victim afterward, although you and your friends didn’t seem to have any trouble seeing me at school every day. Which is why I can’t fathom why you found it so difficult to come here tonight.”

  He looked miserable. “Whatever you say to me isn’t as bad as what I deserve, Jade. I can’t undo what we did, God knows. But please let me talk to you—for just a few minutes. That’s all I ask.”

  She let him inside—perhaps because he acknowledged that what had taken place beside the channel had been against her will. When she thought about it later, that was the only reason she could provide for having let him in.

  He quietly closed the door after stepping inside. “Where’s Mrs. Hearon?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Can we sit down somewhere?”

  “No.” In a subconsciously defensive gesture, Jade folded her arms across her middle. “Say what you came to say, Lamar.”

  He was better-looking than he had been during high school, but no more self-assertive. He didn’t argue with her. “Jade, what we did to you—”