"What do you think of it?"
Too aware of his closeness behind her, Carrie turned and ducked under his arm to return to the bedroom. "It's much finer than anything I've ever seen. I feel out of place in such elegant surroundings."
"You'll get used to it," said Josh. He walked back across the bedroom to double louvered doors. "This is a dressing room which Mother has converted into a room for Mike—for the time being." Carrie followed him into the small room, where a new crib stood against one wall with several toys and stuffed animals in it.
"Well, Mike." Josh set the little boy in the crib and offered him a small fuzzy bear. "Teddy has been waiting for you." Mike grabbed the bear in both hands and squealed happily.
Josh laughed and turned to Carrie. "He's going to adjust very well, I think." He returned to the bedroom and walked to another door in the wall opposite the bath. "This leads into my suite." He put his hand on the knob but did not open the door.
"Is—is there a key?" Carrie asked.
His look was mocking. "This door will never be locked, Carrie. We wouldn't want the servants to get the wrong idea, would we?"
"Don't you mean the right idea?" Carrie said in her coolest tone of voice. Another squeal of delight came from beyond the louvered doors where Mike had evidently discovered another new toy. She turned away from Josh and took off her suit jacket, tossing it on the blue satin bedspread. Although she hadn't heard him move—the thick carpeting muffled footsteps—she was suddenly aware of his closeness and whirled about to stare up into his face.
Strong hands gripped her upper arms, heat penetrating from them through the silk of her blouse. "Is that your way of telling me that you intend to make our relationship platonic?"
Her heart hammered in her chest as she became aware of the dangerous light in his eyes. "You—you know that was our agreement."
His gaze roamed over her hair and face. "I remember no such agreement, Carrie. I don't recall that the subject was ever mentioned, actually."
"But you c-can't mean to—" She found that she was quite breathless. "W-we hardly know each other!" - "What better way to become acquainted, my beautiful wife?" Suddenly she was gathered against him and, before she knew what was happening or could think what to do about it, his lips had captured hers with such a warm provocative exploration that she lost her breath. It was a long, demanding kiss, his lips crushing, possessing, the intimacy increasing as his tongue found hers.
Carrie felt as if her body were welded to his, and her mouth was softening, melting, becoming one with his mouth. A swooning sort of feeling had invaded her body, weakening her, making her feel that she would surely faint any second.
Then he lifted his head and, still holding her against him, murmured huskily, "You are my wife, Carrie. We are one in the eyes of God and the state, whether you wish to accept it or not."
"I married you only because you forced me to, and you know it." Her voice sounded strangely weak.
"Nevertheless, can't we enjoy our situation?"
She tried to twist away from him, but he held her fast. "Enjoy!" she gasped. "Do you think I could enjoy having a Revell pawing over me?"
He stared down at her, a muscle in his jaw twitching slightly. "I promise you," he drawled, "I could teach you to enjoy it."
"I hate you!" she spat at him. "You brought me here under false pretenses! Well, anything you get from me you will take by force!" She might have said more, but the look in his flashing eyes stopped her.
"We'll see about that!" He spoke through gritted teeth. "Do you really think you can live like a nun indefinitely, with only an unlocked door separating you from your husband?"
Josh let her go abruptly and, turning on one heel, walked toward his suite. He did not look back as he closed the door firmly behind him.
Chapter Three
Carrie walked about the spacious room, her anxiety over her husband's unexpected behavior gradually giving way to a grudging admiration for her surroundings. She trailed her fingers over the satiny finish of the dressing table and a large armoire, stopping to stare down at the oversized satin-covered bed, both hands on one tall carved post of the footboard.
This must have been Josh's first wife's room. How could he help but think of her whenever he came here? Had she looked anything like Carrie? The idea came as something of a shock to Carrie. It was the first time she had really wondered about that first wife—how she had looked, what sort of woman she had been. It occurred to her that if she, Carrie, resembled the other woman in some way, that might explain Josh's suggestion that they marry. In which case there might be a little more to the marriage, in her husband's mind, than simply his desire to raise his brother's son. This possibility caused her to shiver uncomfortably. If Josh had married her because she reminded him of his first wife, he was heading for a big letdown. She was, she told herself, nothing like any woman who could have fallen in love with Joshua Revell, even a younger Joshua Revell who had probably been less arrogant and ruthless than the man Carrie had married.
She walked over to the large closet and opened louvered doors, half expecting to see the first wife's clothes still hanging there, but the closet was completely bare. Relieved, Carrie put her suitcases on the bed and began to arrange her clothes in the closet and the armoire. When she had finished, she carried Mike's things into the adjoining dressing room and placed them in the drawers of the chest. The baby was lying on his side, playing drowsily with the Teddy bear. His big blue eyes followed her to the chest. He sat up with a gurgle of laughter and held his arms out to her.
"Mama!" he squealed.
Carrie found a disposable diaper and changed him. "You've missed your nap, little man," she cooed to him. "Too much going on today, I expect." She finished pinning the diaper and pulled his corduroy rompers down over his chubby legs again, securing the snap closing. "Come on. We'll both lie down for a rest."
She lifted him and carried him to her own bed. Pulling back the covers, she set him down in the center of the bed and slipped out of her skirt and blouse, crawling under the sheet and satin coverlet with him.
Looking down at his tousled blond curls and soft, vulnerable features, Carrie felt the familiar warm flood of love for him. Oh, Mike, she said silently, have I done the right thing bringing you here? Everything was so different that it must be confusing to a small child. But she was still with him; she was Mike's anchor in this new, perhaps frightening environment. Never, no matter what happened between her and Josh, would she allow herself to be separated from this child. She curled her legs up around his baby warmth and drifted into a dreamless sleep.
When she awakened, the room was gloomy with dark evening shadows. Yawning, she let her glance slide over the bed and discovered that the baby was no longer there. Had he fallen out? But surely, if that had happened, he would have cried and awakened her. Nevertheless, she got out of bed and walked around it; but there was no sign of Mike.
She checked his crib and found it empty, also, except for the toys. A quick, furtive glance into Josh's suite revealed it to be unoccupied at the moment, as well. Feeling a slight flicker of worry, she wondered if Josh had taken Mike downstairs. Turning on one of the dressing-table lamps, she saw propped against the lamp base a note addressed to her in a heavy masculine scrawl.
Carrie,
I've gone to the office to go through my mail. You and Mike were sleeping so peacefully, it seemed as good a time as any. I shouldn't be too late.
Josh
So Josh had come into the room while she and Mike slept. She glanced down at the sheer lacy bra and half-slip that she wore and felt her face growing warm as she wondered how well covered she had been when Josh was in the room, standing beside the bed looking down at her and the baby.
She went to the closet, found a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved cotton chambray shirt, and put them on, then stepped into crepe-soled loafers. One question had been answered, at least. Mike was not with Josh. She hurried down the stairs, puzzled who had taken him, for she didn'
t think a baby could descend the stairs on his own, and if he had fallen, the whole house would have heard his cries.
Her concern was allayed almost at once, for just as she stepped off the bottom stair into the foyer, she heard the baby's gurgling laughter coming from the back of the house. Relieved, she moved through several rooms toward the sound. Whoever he was with, Mike was obviously content.
The baby's laughter was coming from the kitchen, which Carrie entered through swinging half-doors opening onto a back hall. Mike sat in a high chair that was pulled up next to a round maple table. A tea towel that had been tied around his neck to serve as a bib was speckled with the remains of what had obviously been his dinner. At the moment he was banging a plastic cup against the tray of the high chair and laughing at the white-haired man who sat at the table and made comical faces at him.
As Carrie entered, an older woman with iron-gray hair pulled tight in a bun and a girl of about eighteen with sandy hair and freckles, both of whom were sitting opposite the man at the table, turned toward her with surprised looks.
The man and the older woman got to their feet hastily. "Mrs. Revell…" said the woman, smiling a little uncertainly. "Were you worried about the baby?"
"No, not worried really," Carrie replied. "I just wanted to know what had become of him." She moved to the high chair and, looking down at Mike's milk mustache, laughed. "He couldn't be better, I see." She turned to the three people at the table. "You must be Betty and Adam Carney. Josh mentioned you both to me earlier."
"Yes, ma'am." Betty Carney, a short, plump woman in her early sixties, continued to do the talking for the trio. "This is my niece, Grade Helmstrom. Grade comes in from town five days a week and helps out."
Gracie's freckled face crinkled in a shy smile as she murmured, "How do you do, Mrs. Revell." The girl's hazel eyes hadn't left Carrie's face from the moment she had stepped into the kitchen. She was clearly intensely interested in the woman whom Joshua Revell had married.
"Please," Carrie said, "sit down, all of you. I didn't mean to interrupt your dinner."
Adam, a tall, raw-boned man, seemed glad to regain his chair. He turned back to Mike and began pretending to try to take the cup from the baby's chubby hand. Mike was delighted with the game.
"We've just finished our dinner," Betty told Carrie. "So has Mike." Instead of sitting down, she moved to the sink and wet a washcloth, bringing it to the high chair to clean the baby's face and hands. "I heard him when I passed by your bedroom a little while ago. I knocked, but you were sleeping. So I peeked in to make sure the baby was all right. You looked to be resting so well that I decided to bring him down here and see if he was hungry." She carried the wet cloth back to the sink, then turned to look at Carrie a little anxiously. "I hope you don't think I was presumptuous."
"Of course not," Carrie assured her. "I appreciate your feeding Mike. He seems to be enjoying himself immensely."
Betty Carney's smile, resting on the baby, was indulgent. Mike had evidently made a conquest of the Carneys. "He has a good, hearty appetite, all right. I didn't see a bottle anywhere in your bedroom, so I took a chance and gave him a cup. He does right well with it."
Carrie chuckled. "Now he does. You should have seen him two months ago when I started giving him liquids from a cup. I just let him spill and slop until he taught himself to handle it. I—I hadn't had any experience with babies before Mike, so I didn't know how else to go about it."
"That's as good a way as any," the housekeeper said, her gaze containing an element of curiosity. "The baby's your nephew, Mr. Josh said." There was a question in the intonation.
"Yes. My sister died when he was born."
After a brief silence, the housekeeper evidently realized her new mistress was not willing to volunteer any more information. She looked somewhat flustered and said, "Would you like your dinner now, Mrs. Revell?"
"No," Carrie said quickly. "We had sandwiches earlier. But I would like a cup of coffee if there's any left in that pot on the stove."
The housekeeper took a cup and saucer from the cabinet, saying, "Wouldn't you like me to bring it to you in the front sitting room? There's a nice fire going in there. I'll bring the baby in, too, if you want."
"That won't be necessary," Carrie said. "I'll drink it here." She had already seated herself in one of the chairs at the table before she realized that the three servants were looking decidedly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry," she said falteringly. "Am I intruding on a family conversation?"
"Not at all!" Adam Carney turned from playing with the baby, and his deep, booming voice was something of a surprise to Carrie.
"It's just that," his wife said as she set Carrie's coffee in front of her, "we aren't used to—" She halted abruptly, her round face flushing, and turned to begin placing the dirty dishes in the dishwasher.
"She means," piped Gracie suddenly, "the other one never set foot in the kitchen."
Adam Carney set his coffee cup down in his saucer with a loud clatter and scowled at the girl. His wife straightened from her work and said sharply, "Grade! That will do."
"But," the wide-eyed Gracie prattled on, as if once loosed her tongue could not be reined so quickly, "you told me yourself that Helen Revell was awful keen on servants keeping their place."
Adam's chair scraped against the tile floor as he got to his feet. "Time you was going home, girl. Come along and I'll drive you."
Apparently realizing that she had said something amiss, the girl blushed furiously and followed her uncle from the kitchen without another word.
"You mustn't mind Gracie," the housekeeper said, returning to stacking dishes. "She's a good girl, but when she opens her mouth there's no telling what might come out."
"Helen Revell. That was Josh's first wife, wasn't it?"
The housekeeper's expression was a mixture of curiosity and discomfort. "Why, yes, ma'am. But then I'm sure Mr. Revell has told you that."
"No—uh, we never really discussed his first wife. Did she—well, did she look anything like me?"
Now Betty Carney's mouth fell open. "Like you? Gracious no! She was blond—blonder than Mr. Josh— and very tall, like a model. Not exactly beautiful, you know, but she caught people's eyes, especially—well, I'm sure you don't want to hear about that."
Carrie, whose curiosity was aroused, found that she did want very much to hear more about the first Mrs. Joshua Revell. But she didn't know how to question Betty further without embarrassing her. Nevertheless, she was about to pursue the subject, in spite of what the housekeeper might think, when a harsh buzzing sounded in the kitchen.
"That's Mrs. Revell," Betty said. "If you will excuse me, ma'am, I'll go and see what she wants."
Carrie turned her attention to Mike and was playing pattycake with him when the housekeeper returned to the kitchen. "I'm going to take Mrs. Revell some hot tea." She stopped and smiled at Mike, who was clapping his hands happily. "What a precious child he is. Mrs. Revell asked if you and the baby could come in to see her for a bit. She—she gets lonely, I'm afraid."
"Of course we'll go in," Carrie said willingly. "Won't we, Mike?" She removed the tea towel from his neck, laid it aside, and lifted the baby from the high chair. "Thank you for the coffee, Mrs. Carney, and for feeding Mike."
"Call me Betty like everybody else does. As for feeding that little imp, it was a pleasure. Whenever you need someone to keep an eye on him, just call on me."
"Why, thank you, Betty," Carrie said warmly. "That's very nice of you."
As she turned to carry Mike from the kitchen the housekeeper said, "I'm glad you've come here, ma'am. Mr. Josh, he's needed a wife for a long time now."
Carrie managed a smile but did not reply as she left the kitchen. The good-hearted Betty Carney would never be able to understand the true state of affairs between her and Josh. No more than Ethel Revell would. Better to leave both women in ignorance, Carrie told herself, as she carried Mike along the carpeted hallway toward Ethel's apartment—although how long the two w
omen could go on believing that her marriage to Josh was a normal, happy one, while living under the same roof with them, was subject to conjecture. She wondered, for instance, what Ethel thought of her son's leaving his wife on their wedding day to go to his office. Carrie hoped, as she stood outside the closed door to her mother-in-law's apartment, that Ethel did not bring up that subject with her. In spite of her distrust of all Revells, she had warmed to the woman during their first meeting. She hoped they could be friends, but that might be difficult if Carrie had to be constantly on guard against probing questions. With the servants, she could simply refuse to answer. That might be more difficult where Josh's mother was concerned.
Shifting Mike in her arms, she knocked, heard Ethel's welcome call, and entered the apartment. She found herself in another small sitting room, this one furnished in a more elegant style than the one where she had met Ethel earlier. A gracefully carved antique settee and chairs upholstered in lavender velvet were arranged on one side of the room, and a Persian rug covered most of the floor.
Ethel Revell, in a soft pink velvet robe, was half reclining on a damask rose chaise longue near a corner bookshelf with an exquisite antique desk. She smiled as Carrie and Mike appeared and patted an armchair next to the longue. "Thank you for coming in to see me. Sit down here."
Carrie settled Mike on her lap where, for the moment, he seemed content to gaze with wide blue eyes about the unfamiliar room.
"Oh, here's Betty with my tea."
The housekeeper carried a tray into the room and set it on a low table next to the chaise. "Good," continued Ethel as Betty left, ".she's brought two cups. Would you like tea, Carrie?"
"No, thank you. I just had a cup of coffee in the kitchen."
Ethel poured her own tea, added a lump of sugar, and settled back against the chaise longue with the cup in her slender, blue-veined hands. "I'm sorry Josh felt he had to take care of business today." A small frown etched lines between her brows. "I hope you aren't feeling neglected, my dear. Really, I felt it was quite unnecessary for him to go down to the office, and I told him so." She sighed. "As I am sure you have discovered, my son isn't easily swayed in any of his decisions."
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