From This Day Forward

by Deborah Cox

  It was no use trying to concentrate on anything. Her mind kept returning to the afternoon's battle. Like generals in a war, they seemed to gather their forces for each skirmish, inflict as much damage as possible on the other side, then retreat to count their losses and tend their wounds in order to regroup for the next battle. The problem was that he played the game much better than she did. His blows struck much deeper than hers.

  "Damn him!" she said aloud to the empty room.

  Coming to her feet, she began to pace the length of the room as a growing anger roiled in her breast. When she looked back on the history of their little war, she had to admit that she'd lost almost every battle, and it infuriated her. She'd never lost at anything, and the bitter taste of defeat nearly choked her.

  Where was he weakest, most vulnerable? If she could analyze his defenses and exploit his Achilles' heel, she could....

  What? She could win? At what cost? If she declared all-out war, would either of them be left standing when it was over?

  Until now, he'd set the rules and he'd maintained the element of surprise. She'd never known when something she said would set him off. That still might be true, but the next time she would be prepared.

  And there would be a next time. He'd said the mail boat wouldn't return for another month. That meant they'd be forced to share this house for a while longer. And then....

  Caroline's heart constricted as she considered her options. She couldn't go back to New Orleans. She'd sold everything she owned, including her house, and Derek Sinclair would never rehire her after what she'd done.

  Moving in with Aunt Sarah in Memphis was her only option, and the thought made her stomach knot and her heart sink.

  Aunt Sarah wasn't unkind, just unbending. Pious to the point of absurdity, Sarah Powers, her mother's matronly sister, detested anything she considered worldly—newspapers, plays, music, paintings, anything more than somber, utilitarian dress.... It was a list without end. Once under Aunt Sarah's roof, all of Caroline's hard won independence would be stripped from her, along with her very spirit.

  "And I wanted adventure," she said aloud with a snort.

  "What is a'venture?"

  Caroline jerked guiltily at the sound of the voice behind her, whirling around to watch Ines enter the room with a feather duster in her hand. She turned away with a sigh, running her fingers along the uneven row of book spines that lined the shelf before her.

  "Excitement," she explained. "Experience. Maybe danger."

  "You have a'venture where you come from?" Ines asked as she began dusting the furniture.

  Caroline laughed without humor. "Where I come from, the only adventure I ever experienced was trying to get to work on the trolley car."

  Ines stopped dusting, her brow knitting in curiosity. "This is dangerous?"

  "No." Caroline smiled. "No, it's not dangerous. It's not very exciting either, but it is an experience."

  "Here it is excitement all the time," Ines assured her, resuming her task.

  "Oh, I can imagine."

  Excitement was one thing she would never lack in the Amazon Valley. The jungle pulsed with a never- ending struggle for survival. But the one thing she would lack was the one thing she didn't want to live without, the one thing she had come here hoping to find—a sense of belonging, of being needed and cherished.

  Her father had cherished her, in his own way, but that wasn't the kind of love she wanted now.

  She'd hoped to find that kind of love and mutual need with Wade, but he had been incapable of the depth of emotion she craved.

  "So, here you have adventure, yes?" Ines's words drew her out of her reverie.

  "No," Caroline replied quickly. "Well, yes, but I can't stay here."

  Ines turned to face Caroline with shock and disappointment in her eyes. "But you marry Master Jason and travel across the ocean Atlantic."

  "Not exactly, but I did travel a very long way. It—it was very foolish of me. I thought—" Caroline broke off, her eyes filling with tears she refused to shed.

  "You don't like it here?"

  Gaining control again, Caroline took a deep breath before answering, "I haven't been here long enough to tell. It doesn't matter. Master Jason says I must go and I'm not even sure I want to stay. I don't know what I want."

  "Master Jason means what he doesn't say sometimes."

  Caroline laughed. "I wonder."

  "Master Jason is a good man. I know. Master Jason is not affection, not soft. You know?"

  "Believe it or not, I do."

  "But in here—" Ines held her fist to her chest. "In here he is soft."

  Caroline turned to gaze out the window once again, her mind in turmoil. She'd believed Jason to be soft on the inside. Otherwise she never would have come here at all. But what she hadn't expected was the hardness of the shell he'd crawled into. If he possessed any softness, she wasn't sure any more that she could get through to it, to the man inside.

  The rain subsided as quickly as it had begun. The jungle grew quiet and still for an instant before bursting with the noise of trilling birds and chattering monkeys once again. "Ines, he doesn't want me here. He's told me so."

  "Man like Master Jason, he not always knows what he want. Sometime he find out what he want when it's gone."

  "He has been nothing but rude and outright cruel to me since I've been here. He avoids me or insults me..."

  "He is afraid."

  Surprise forced Caroline to turn and face the other woman. "Afraid? Of what?"

  "Of course, of you."

  Caroline laughed without humor. "Me? That's ridiculous. I can't imagine that Jason Sinclair has ever been afraid of anything. Why would you think he's afraid of me?"

  Ines stared at her for a moment, and Caroline waited for her to speak. Instead, she turned away and went back to dusting. "I say too much. Master Jason, he is much mixed up inside. He isn't liking it here alone, and he is afraid. He is afraid you will get too close to him and you will not like what is there."

  The less you let anyone else know how you feel about anything, the better. It's good business sense.

  Jason's words leaped into her mind. At the time, she'd taken them at face value, but maybe there was more to it than that. Business sense or philosophy of life? Could Ines be right? Her heart twisted at the thought that the frightened, injured little boy she'd glimpsed in Jason's letters might still be trapped inside that grown up body.

  "You stay, Senhora." Ines nodded emphatically and went back to her dusting, as if everything was settled.

  "I can't. Don't you understand? He said I have to go back on the mail boat when it returns." Caroline looked out the window again. "I'm not sure I want to stay anyway. I'm not what he wanted, and I don't know if he's what I want either."

  "Sim, Senhora. You want a strong man, not like Master Jason, a handsome man, no? Varonil? Yes, I see why you do not want Master Jason for a husband."

  Caroline laughed. "Well, I don't know what varonil means exactly, but I can guess, and yes, he is all those things, but what difference does it make whether or not I want him if he doesn't want me?"

  Ines smiled slyly. "Master Jason is not knowing his own mind, I know. But a beautiful woman can sometimes show a man what he does not want to see, it is not true?"

  Jason stood just outside the stable beneath a waning sun, his eyes closed as the hauntingly sweet music surrounded him and penetrated his soul. A deluge of memories rushed at him so quickly he didn't have time to staunch them. The half-forgotten scent of roses filled his nostrils, and an oppressive heat nearly suffocated him, not the heat of the jungle. He'd been transported to Mrs. Longford's parlor in the Garden District of New Orleans. He was a child again, sitting on the bench beside his mother while she played.

  A piano had been far out of reach of the Sinclairs' meager income, but Mrs. Longford, one of the fine ladies his mother had done laundry for, had allowed her to play from time to time. Listening to his mother play was one of the few pleasant memories from
his childhood.

  He blinked against the blinding emotion in his breast. The soft, seductive melody settled like a stone on his heart.

  No one in the house knew how to play the piano, no one except perhaps Caroline. Evidently that was one requirement Derek had heeded.

  She played well, better than his mother, but then Caroline had probably had more opportunity to practice.

  My grandmother had a grand piano in her house in Dublin. His mother's clear, dulcet voice reached out to him from the past. I used to play all the time when I was a girl, but then the bad times came and we had to leave.

  He didn't want to go inside. He wanted to stay where he was and listen to the haunting music and forget that she would be gone in a month, this woman who made him feel things he'd never felt before.

  What was it about her that made him feel that anything was possible? She made him hope, made him almost eager for tomorrow instead of fearing it as something unknown and therefore threatening.

  Shaking himself mentally, he gathered his resolve before stalking purposefully toward the open door to the downstairs parlor where the grand piano had stood silently for five years. He stopped just inside the door, captivated by the sight of her sitting on the bench, her hands moving magically over the white and black keys as she elicited sounds from the instrument, the sweetest sounds he'd ever heard.

  His breath caught in his throat as his eyes glided over her body, drinking in her beauty. She wore a white gown, the sleeves of which were little more than strips of material worn low on her smooth, white shoulders. A deep V plunged down her back, revealing delicate shoulder blades and soft, ivory flesh. Her brown hair, as lustrous as the mahogany instrument she stroked, was swept up in a chignon and gilded with one of the orchids he had placed in her room every day.

  Caroline reached the end of the piece, her fingers lingering over the last chords. As the melody died away, it was replaced by the sound of clapping. She turned slowly to see Jason standing in the doorway, his body haloed by the red light of the setting sun.

  Still angry after their earlier confrontation, Caroline turned away, glancing back at the keys. "I couldn't resist. I suppose I shouldn't have played without asking permission," she said caustically. "I know I had no right—"

  "Don't," he said sharply. "You're welcome to play as long as you're here. I didn't know its sound would be so true after all these years in the jungle humidity."

  "Why do you own a piano you don't play? Is it just another possession to add to your collection, something else to own just for the sake of owning it?" Calm, calm, she told herself. She was spoiling for a fight, and if she didn't watch her sharp tongue, she'd end up prodding him into another argument.

  "What difference could it possibly make to you?"

  "You own books you don't read and a piano you don't play," she said thoughtfully. "What a pity."

  "What do you mean?"

  She shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, acutely aware that he had come to stand close behind her. "Anyone who knows anything at all about the piano will tell you that the sweetness and tone only improve with the playing."

  "Is that so?"

  "Why yes," she replied as demurely as she could. She ran her hand across the keys from low to high. "Of course, it takes a true master to bring her to complete fulfillment."

  He moved so swiftly she had no time to react before he slammed the lid on the piano keys, and Caroline withdrew her fingers just in time.

  His hand still on the piano, he stood over her, his gaze traveling down the low décolletage of her gown. Her face and throat flushed with hot color as she struggled to control the wild pounding of her heart and her rapid breathing. From his vantage point, he would be able to see deep inside the daringly cut gown.

  "And was your first husband such a master?" he asked, his voice thick with desire.

  Caroline fought the urge to cover herself against the warmth of his gaze on her exposed flesh. Perhaps she had been too bold this time, but she had to do something if she wanted to stay here. No one was going to convince Jason Sinclair that he didn't know his own mind, but perhaps she could sway his senses by showing him what he would miss when she was gone. And perhaps if she could make him desire her, she could make him love her.

  You have almost every young man you meet wrapped around your little finger, but you always want the one who can resist your charms, her father had told her more than once. And whether that was true or not didn't matter in the least. All she knew was that she wanted this man, God help her, despite his gruff, irascible manner. And she would not get on that mail boat and return to New Orleans in defeat, not without a fight.

  Tension crackled in the scant space between them. Caroline's breath became shallow and her nipples grew taut in anticipation of his touch. She wanted him to touch her gently, to kiss her again.

  He had asked her a question, a bitter question, but she couldn't answer. Her throat had tightened and her mind had stopped functioning altogether.

  "Run out of clever retorts?" he whispered.

  "I..."

  Her words drifted away unsaid as he ran a finger along the line of her collar bone, the gentle fire in his fingertips melting what was left of her composure. A dizzying desire possessed her body as he lowered his head, the soft warmth of his breath touching her parted lips. Gasping for air, Caroline felt her body melting into a pool of mindless longing. It didn't matter that he'd been cruel to her earlier. Nothing mattered but Jason and the terrifying demands of her own body.

  "Dinner."

  Caroline nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Ines's voice from the doorway. Jason jerked away quickly, and it took them both a few moments to compose themselves.

  Jason smiled sardonically, as if he had been unaffected, as if she had been the only one close to surrender, and she hated him for that smile. Grudgingly, she placed her hand on his proffered arm, her body still resounding with a bittersweet yearning as they walked into the dining room. He held her chair out for her, then took his own place across from her.

  Caroline noticed that Ines served the food quickly and made her exit as soon as possible, the traitor, leaving her alone with this man who defied understanding.

  Silence stretched between them as they both concentrated on their food. Jason lifted his water goblet and took a long drink. As he returned the glass to the table, Caroline felt the heat of his measuring gaze.

  "So," he said, "tell me about this husband of yours."

  Caroline stiffened. "Why? I thought you didn't want to know anything about me."

  Jason shrugged. "Just trying to make conversation. But if it's a sore subject...."

  "He died in a river boat accident three years ago. We were married less than two years. Afterward, I supported myself by teaching piano and—"

  "But you haven't told me anything about the man," he interrupted, "what he was like."

  She shot him a murderous scowl. "There's not much to tell."

  "You mean he wasn't much of a man?" he asked, wiping his mouth with a white linen napkin and placing it on the table beside his plate.

  "I didn't say that." He was leading up to something, and she wasn't sure she wanted to follow.

  "I'm sure there are plenty of interesting things about your former husband." He sat back in his chair, studying the wine in his glass as he swirled it around.

  "What would you like to know?" she asked, knowing full well that he didn't want to know about Wade at all. He wanted her to say something he could attack.

  "Oh, his name, what he looked like, how old he was...."

  "His name was Wade. Wade Marshall. He stood just under six feet tall, rather slim. His hair and eyes were brown. He was a year older than me and had all his permanent teeth, as far as I knew."

  "How did you meet?"

  Caroline released a tired sigh. He wouldn't be happy until she answered all his questions, when he had been so reticent about answering hers. "He was one of my father's apprentices."

  "Ah, so he
was a doctor like your father," Jason said, pretending to give the matter careful consideration. "You must have had quite a lot to talk about."

  "He was not a doctor. My father left him enough money to finish medical school but—" She hesitated, the pain in her heart as acute as it had been three years ago. "Well, he lost it and he was never the same after that. It broke his spirit."

  Jason was quiet for so long that Caroline grew uncomfortable. Unable to meet his gaze, she rearranged the food on her plate with her fork. She'd told him what he wanted to know. Why didn't he say something? Why did he sit there as if he were analyzing her testimony for flaws, for hidden meanings?

  Finally he spoke, his voice soft and low. "If he had no more spirit than that...."

  Caroline faced him squarely, outraged at his unwarranted attack. Maybe Wade had been weak, but it was utterly unfair and petty of Jason to slander a dead man. "Not everyone has your strength. Not everyone can survive what you have—"

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to retrieve them. How could she have been so careless? She knew him so well it was hard to pretend they were complete strangers. She knew that his parents had been Irish, that his father's name was Cullen, that his sister had killed herself. And she knew that he'd overcome more in his lifetime than most men could have endured. Naturally he would disdain those weaker than he.

  But she wasn't supposed to know any of those things. He must never learn that she'd pretended to be Derek and answered his letters, read letters intended for his cousin. Deep in the pit of her stomach, she feared that he would never forgive her should he find out.

  She sat as still as a statue, watching him, gauging his reaction. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowed, his face as hard and cold as granite. "How could you possibly know what I've survived?"

  Swallowing hard against the fear lodged in her throat, Caroline measured her words with care. Still she stammered guiltily when she finally spoke. "I... It's written on your face, in—in your eyes."