by J. L. Jarvis
Benjamin nodded toward the shop and said with a tone unmistakably biting, “Henrietta. It was my fault she went into hiding.”
“Oh, that. She probably needed some new hardware,” said Fletcher.
“With any luck, while she’s in there she’ll trip and get her head stuck in a vise.”
Fletcher leaned back, amused. “What’s the matter? Did she mop your floors the wrong way?”
“Oh, she had the house under control, and me with it. Between the laudanum and the whiskey—well, you saw me.”
“She did that to you?”
Benjamin’s eyes darkened. “No, I can’t give her all the credit. I drank it. It’s supposed to make people better. But for me, it made everything worse. When I finally wanted to stop, she kept giving me more, and she’d leave it around where she knew I would see it and take it. She made it available, but I’m the one who drank it. I can’t blame her for that.”
Fletcher looked troubled. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
“You don’t know what I did,” he said, regretting the scene in the kitchen.
Fletcher shook his head. “Whatever it was, I’ve no doubt she deserved it.”
“I’d just gotten rid of one bottle when she brought out another. She knew I didn’t want any more, but she poured it into a glass. She was taunting me with it. So I forced her to drink it.”
“You forced Henrietta? That’s hard to imagine.”
“I didn’t give her much choice. Something came over me. A rage rose up in me. I’ve known that feeling only one other time—when I wrestled a bear.”
“Well, that’s an apt comparison.” Fletcher nodded. It made perfect sense.
“It attacked me—”
Fletcher grinned. “Excuse me. To clarify here, about whom are we talking, Henrietta or—?”
“The bear. It brought out this primal animal power I didn’t know I had.”
“So you’re saying she’s—?”
“Worse than a bear,” Benjamin said, glancing up with a glint in his eye. “But I knew that the only way to come out of that struggle alive was to kill the bear, and somehow I did. With Henrietta, only one of us could win. So I poured that stuff down her gullet before she could do it to me.”
“It sounds fair to me. She got a taste—”
“Of her own medicine.” Benjamin rolled his eyes as he finished the sentence. “I know, but I wasn’t a gentleman.”
Fletcher looked at him frankly. “Do you think she’s a lady? Trust me. She’s not.”
“She’s just hurt,” said Benjamin.
“She’s had plenty of time to get over a broken engagement.”
“I thought that once, too. Until I lost Emma, I didn’t know how deeply a wound like that cuts. It can tear you apart on the inside until nothing’s right anymore.”
Fletcher nodded. “Something’s not right in her head, that’s for sure.”
“She just feels things too deeply. She’s too good and too kind.”
Fletcher blinked. “Are we talking about Henrietta?”
Benjamin snapped out of his reverie. “No!” He shuddered. “Emma!”
Fletcher sighed with relief. “I was beginning to worry about your head.”
Benjamin said, “Henrietta hasn’t a kind bone in her body. Still, what I did wasn’t right. I should tell her I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Stark!” he said with disgust. “Don’t be a saint! Don’t even waste one second of your time feeling sorry for Hetta.”
Benjamin’s ears perked up. “Hetta?”
Fletcher cast his eyes down, but a blush colored his cheekbones.
Benjamin would not let it go. “Hetta? No one calls her Hetta. Tell me, Fletcher, I knew she was crying on your shoulder. What other body parts did she cry on?”
Fletcher gave him a scathing look. “None, I assure you.” Mischief crept into his eyes. “But if she had, it would have been a good long cry.”
Suppressing a grin, Fletcher walked on, looking straight ahead.
“That’s not what I heard,” said Benjamin, smiling.
A sharp jab to his biceps interrupted Benjamin’s cadence. The two shared a laugh as Benjamin rubbed the pain from his arm. “Tell me this, Fletcher: with all of the pretty young ladies who admire you, why would you choose her?”
“Now wait a minute. You cannot stand there and say that Henrietta isn’t pretty.”
Benjamin stopped and looked Fletcher straight in the eye. “Henrietta isn’t pretty.” They resumed walking. “She has all the right features, but the way that she uses them—”
“It depends on which feature,” said Fletcher, with a knowing expression. “I have a feeling she knows just how to use her—”
“Fletcher.”
“What?”
“Stop talking.” Benjamin looked away in disgust.
Two days later, Benjamin came down the stairs of his house and set his suitcase down next to the umbrella stand. He went into the study and shuffled some papers about on his desk, then gave up and stacked it all up in a pile and anchored it down with a book. It would wait for two months until he returned. He sat back and surveyed the room. His eyes went right away to the typewriter table. He could still see her there. Shutting his eyes to the vision, he saw her there, too. The same nagging ache filled his chest. He got up and went to the window. The sky had the gray-green hue of an impending storm. Somewhere at the outskirts was Emma, standing there, looking away. With her face to the wind, she was close to the edge of the cliff with the tenuous stance of a phantom about to take flight. She was only a memory now, but a vivid one. Wind struck her hair and swept it behind in wild tendrils that whipped against pale satin shoulders and fell to her muslin-clad body. He saw her so clearly that he felt he could touch her. Almost believing he could, he pressed his palm to the window glass, and clenched his jaw as he choked back the emotions.
Mrs. Dowling stepped into the doorway, but seeing him, gently turned away to leave him alone.
He turned his head, looking lost. “Mrs. Dowling?”
She turned back. “I’m sorry. You asked me to remind you of the time.”
“Thank you.”
She disappeared down the hallway.
Benjamin wiped a handkerchief over his face and took a deep breath to pull himself back together. With one last glance at the cliff, he walked out of the study and down the hall past the table, where Mrs. Dowling stopped him. “There’s some mail here.”
He looked absently toward it. With a nod, he thanked her and glanced at the small pile of envelopes. “It can wait.”
He grabbed his bag, pulled open the door and walked out. Not a dozen steps later, the skies opened up. Benjamin ran back to the house for the umbrella Mrs. Dowling was now waving at him. A loud thunderclap sounded as he touched the doorknob.
“If I were you, I’d let this blow over first,” she told him.
Impatient, but left with no choice, Benjamin nodded. He set down the umbrella and, for lack of anything better, picked up the small stack of mail and looked through it.
The last one was a letter from the New York Asylum for the Insane. “That was quick. I was only there a few days ago.” He dropped it on a pile of letters requesting charity donations. He looked at the envelope again. It looked too small for a business letter. A nagging curiosity urged him to open it. Instead of the usual fundraising letter, he found a personal note penned with an unsteady scrawl.
Dear Mr. Stark,
There’s a young lady here whom, I believe, you are seeking. A woman named Emily Stone was admitted to the hospital some months ago, but her real name is Emma Farlowe.
A Friend
“Mr. Stark?” Mrs. Dowling was waiting to add this letter to the others she held in her hand.
Benjamin stared at the note, while months of anguish rose to the surface. Questions crowded his mind, but he pushed them aside.
“Is something the matter? Mr. Stark?”
He would go there and find her. Nothing else mattered. The Harriman
Expedition would have to go on without him. Benjamin shoved the letter into his coat pocket, as he picked up his suitcase and ran.
“Mr. Stark! Your umbrella!”
Benjamin left a bewildered Mrs. Dowling at the door while he took off at a run for the carriage house.
Dr. Whitfield leaned out of the doorway to his office and quietly spoke with the nurse.
“Miss Stone’s in the garden,” she said to the doctor. “Shall I bring her to you?”
The doctor’s eyes darted toward Benjamin, standing beside him. “It might be better if I spoke with her first.” Turning to Benjamin, he said, “Wait here, please, Mr. Stark.”
Benjamin paced the office under the watchful eye of the nurse, who brought him water to drink and a newspaper to read. He took a gulp of water, but set down the newspaper, unread. He muttered something about the dim lighting and moved to the window to escape her scrutiny, which had less to do with her professional duties than with his brooding mystique. Benjamin’s eyes wandered to a small barrister’s bookshelf. He read the titles in hope of distracting himself from his growing anxiety. Works of Kirkbride, Rush, Buttolph, and Brigham and a new book by someone named Freud sat stacked on top of the shelf. What did any of them know or care about Emma?
The door opened. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark,” said Dr. Whitfield as he closed the door and came in to sit down at his desk. “She won’t see you.”
Benjamin took a step forward. His emotions were barely in check. “I must see her. She must think she’s protecting my feelings, or sparing me somehow, but she’s wrong. Let me see her and talk to her.”
“I know that this cannot be easy. I can see how strongly you feel. But she’s been through a difficult time. I don’t want to shock or upset her.”
Benjamin’s arms tensed. He tried to maintain his control. “I’m not here to upset her. I love her. I’m here to take her home.”
“Yes, I understand. But she was adamant. To try to force her at this point would not help her condition, and might actually harm her.”
Anger flashed in Benjamin’s eyes, which he averted. His jaw clenched as he took in a deep breath and exhaled. With as much control as he had left, he said in a voice that was slow and deliberate, “I have never done anything to upset her. I love her.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
The doctor said, “I’m often told the same thing by the patients.”
“I am not one of your patients.”
“Give me some time to talk to her. You’ve got to be patient.”
“Do I?” Benjamin emphasized the point with his fist on the desk, which did not win him points with the doctor.
He took a moment to quell his anger and said, “I know her. I understand her, and I can take care of her in a way that you can’t.”
“I know that you want to. For now, what she needs—”
“What she needs is to be home, to be loved. Do you honestly think she’d be happier here?”
“The question is: Would she be better off here?”
“I’m prepared to make a generous donation. I can have a check on this desk by end of business tomorrow.”
The doctor sat up straight. “Which we’ll gladly accept, provided it comes unencumbered by conditions that could compromise our patients.”
“What do you want?” Benjamin glanced about. “There must be something the hospital needs.”
“Mr. Stark.”
“Or you, perhaps.”
“Mr. Stark!” Offended, the doctor got up and went to the door, where he stood stiffly. “Thank you for coming. I’m sure that, in time, Miss Stone will grow to appreciate your concern.” The doctor held the door open and waited.
“I will not allow you to hold her here.”
The doctor met his frustration with silence, which angered Benjamin more.
Benjamin moved closer and glared. With a quiet edge to his voice, he said, “You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re all guessing. You’re playing with a young woman’s mind! If anything happens to her, I will hold you responsible, and you will pay. Do you understand?”
Dr. Whitfield took a step backward. “I think you’d better leave now.”
Benjamin held his ground, nostrils flaring, fists clenching, and saying nothing. If he said any more, he would not only hurt future chances to see Emma, but he might hurt the doctor, as well. With a steely glare, he said, “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Mr. Stark, don’t get your hopes up. I don’t expect her condition to change anytime soon.”
Benjamin glanced at the bars on the window. “Neither do I. Not as long as she stays in your care. Good day, Doctor.”
His heels pounded the marble floors all the way to the exit. Outside, Benjamin got into his buggy and started to drive. The drive took him along the perimeter of the grounds, and alongside a fence thickly lined with hedges. Tree branches arched over the walls that surrounded the grounds. The shadows they cast soothed the edge of his temper, but as Benjamin looked at the shadows cast under the trees, he saw something quite different. He pulled over and got out of the carriage. It was a beautiful day for a stroll, one which grew less and less leisurely as he distanced himself from the administration building and followed the fence around the outside of the grounds. When he got to a place that was shady and far from potential observers, he walked to the fence. Having climbed a good many mountains before, it was only a matter of seconds before he was over the sandstone fence post and up into a tree, which he climbed to get over the thick shrubbery that hid the fence from the inside of the grounds. He dropped down somewhere inside the gardens and brushed leaves and twigs from his jacket.
The nurse had said Emma was out in the garden. If she were still here, he would find her. He stayed close to the trees, making his way through the garden undetected. The abundance of foliage helped him to remain undiscovered. When he heard voices near, he was able to hide in the shadows. One time, he climbed up into a tree to avoid a dozen patients in line, one behind the other, with hands clasped behind.
He walked along, trying to cover the grounds methodically, but with 200 acres, this was no easy task. The same landscaping that concealed him might hide Emma, as well. He began to fear that she had gone back inside. He may well have missed her.
He heard voices and ducked behind a tree. The voices grew closer and clearer. The tree was not nearly enough cover if they came any closer. He looked up for a branch to grab hold of and started to pull himself up, when a bittersweet sound gripped his heart. He let the sweet rush of emotion wash over him. Emma was speaking. He had found her. Then a new voice, a man’s voice, pulled him back. He let go and dropped a few inches to the hard ground below.
Benjamin emerged from the wooded planting to find himself facing two people who could not have been any more startled than he. For there, standing together, were Emma and Fletcher.
Chapter 20
The three stared at each other. No one knew what to say. Benjamin was furious with Fletcher. How long had he known she was there? And what was he doing here with her now? But the sight of Emma made everything else unimportant, for the time being.
She was lovely and sad, and he had to remind himself that she did not want to see him. But the urge was still there to rush to her and wrap his arms about her and feel her soft body pressed tightly to his, and yet he was barred from her. His muscular power would do him no good. And his heart was so full that it pounded. Bewildered and broken, he watched her. He had wanted to see her, but he was not prepared to see proof that she did not want to see him. He would never force himself on her, but as he stood there, he wanted nothing more than to go to her, thrust himself at her and devour her mouth with his kiss. A mere glance would have invited.
Fletcher opened his mouth to break the awkward silence, when a small moan came from Emma’s throat, and she swooned. Benjamin lunged toward her but Fletcher was close by her side. Fletcher circled his arms about her waist and held her un
til she was steady, and then he supported and led her several steps to a bench, where she sat. It was Fletcher who sat down beside her. Benjamin was left to look on as his soon to be former friend comforted Emma. An unfamiliar emotion seared his heart as he watched them sitting so closely together. He was jealous. He tried to ignore it, but yes, he was jealous—and he was angry with Emma. She had sent him away.
For God’s sake, Fletcher, why are you here? He wanted to say it, but he would not upset Emma simply to assuage his own feelings. Instead, rage shook his body. He imagined what a joy it would be just to pull Fletcher up by the collar and pound him down into the ground. He might soon have done so, had he not looked into Emma’s round eyes. Her soft look diffused all that was brutal within him and rendered him powerless to her. He watched Fletcher look at her and speak to her gently. He knew that this was precisely what she needed right now, but it pained him to see someone else give it to her. Her pallid face tilted toward Fletcher’s, and she looked so forlorn he was wounded again.
He walked carefully toward her, trying not to upset her but wanting her so. There were things he needed to say, which he would not say here, in this place.
If he could, he’d have told her how desperate a man’s longing could be, how he had walked into her room, seen her hairbrush on the bureau and touched its tangles of silk strands. He had picked it up, hoping to breathe in the smell of the wind in her hair. To miss her was agony.
He walked toward her, watching her face for a sign that he might be upsetting her. Seeing nothing but wonder, he knelt down on his haunches beside her, and rested his hand on the back of the bench. His fingers were inches away from her shoulder.
“Emma.” Even that was choked off in his throat. There were no words. He searched her eyes, wanting to ask her so many things. Had she missed him so much that she woke from dark sleep with a cry from her soul? Had she thought of the anguish she’d caused him? But his questions were selfish. To speak his heart now would only add to her torment. He looked down at her lap, and he wanted to lay his head down. She was breaking his heart. He was crumbling before her.