by Susan Wiggs
After supper, Mary fell to chatting with the young couple next to them. They were full of gossip and giggling, and Jesse was pleased to see Mary coming back to herself, smiling more readily and relaxing. He could feel her foot under the table, tapping in time to the music.
Jesse wasn’t prepared when she turned to him and said, “Tell me what happened to Mrs. Hapgood’s child. The first one.”
“I have no idea—”
“Yes, you do. Now, either you can tell me, or I’ll go ask Mrs. Swann.”
Jesse took a deep breath. He didn’t want to speak of this, didn’t want to see Mary’s face when she heard it. But the words came forth, relentless as the sea itself. “She had a baby out of wedlock. The child’s father—he’d been her employer—claimed the baby once it was born. She’s never seen it since.”
Mary fell completely silent, completely still. Jesse couldn’t tell if it was the gathering darkness or his own imagination, but she had never looked so small and defenseless.
“Would you like to dance?” someone asked. Jesse was shocked to realize it was his own voice.
She turned to him, her face soft and wistful in the torchlight. “I do love a dance,” she admitted. “But not here. I’d feel too conspicuous.” She glanced down at her stomach.
Yet he heard the yearning in her voice, heard the need calling to him. He took her hand and drew her to her feet. “Come on.”
She followed him, not resisting, but clearly baffled. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
Beyond the circle of torchlight, darkness reigned. But the blue glow from the rising moon enabled him to see where he was going. On the east side of the courthouse, far from the crowd of people, stood a gazebo clad in white lattice. Summer roses twined along the sides. He led Mary up three steps to the platform. A riot of flowers obscured the night sky.
Feeling awkward, yet curiously liberated, Jesse bowed formally before her. “May I have this dance?”
He expected her to play along, to bat her eyes and let him sweep her into his arms. Instead, she burst into tears.
“Christ,” he muttered, straightening.
“I’m sorry.” She sniffed into her sleeve. “It’s just that all I’ve wanted this evening was to dance, and now you’re making my wish come true. How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That I wanted so badly to dance?”
“You don’t exactly hide your feelings. Now, do you want to dance or not?”
“Yes,” she said, and her tears evaporated on a brilliant smile. “Yes, I want to dance with you.”
No matter how much time had passed, he still remembered how to dance. He recalled the steps and the rhythm and the posture. What he hadn’t remembered was the sweetness of holding a woman in his arms. Or perhaps it was a sweetness he had never really savored until this moment.
Mary gave her all to him—the grace of her dainty footsteps on the planks of the private gazebo. The warmth of her fingers cradled in his. The intimate inward curve of her back where he rested his hand. The satiny texture of her hair, drifting against his chin as they moved together.
Adoration shone in her eyes when she looked at him and said, “Thank you, Jesse. Thank you for dancing with me.”
Then he was kissing her, and he had no idea how it had started or if he should or whose fault it was. All he knew was that he was kissing her, his hands sliding down her back, cupping her intimately against him while his mouth explored hers. Exploration turned to seduction. His tongue traced the seam of her lips until she opened for him, letting him in, letting him taste her, letting his tongue make love to her with a rhythm echoed by the movements of their bodies against each other.
Without loosing his hold on her, he brought her to one of the benches at the periphery of the gazebo, and together they sank down, holding each other, hungry and desperate. She tasted of an earthy essence, elemental, vital. His hands slid over her, finding her breasts full and soft. She wore no stays or busked corset. Only a thin layer of fabric lay between his hand and her breasts.
It was the most searing sensation he had experienced in a long time. Years it was since he had cupped a woman’s breast in the palm of his hand, years since he’d understood the fragile eroticism that held him in its thrall.
“Ah, Mary, Mary, you feel so damned good,” he murmured. Her head fell back, and he ran his lips along the column of her neck, loving the smooth texture of her, imagining the way she would feel against him. “I need to be closer to you,” he said, lust and not reason talking. “Closer, yes, as close as we can be.”
He drew her onto his lap, and the pressure of her weight stirred the wildness inside him. The pulse in his ears roared like the sea, and he had never wanted, never needed a woman as he needed Mary now. He sensed the answering need in her. She was all woman in her desire. Her hands were frankly suggestive as they glided up his chest, parting his shirt.
Yet even as everything inside him strained for her, he felt the pain. Love hurt. He had learned that years ago. The lesson had been scored into his heart by a wrenching loss.
He held her closer, closer, and wondered how he had survived the last twelve years without this blessed ache. He’d had no idea it was possible for him to feel like this...until Mary.
This was it, then. This was the night he was going to cross the invisible boundary between them and make her his. He would hold her close and—Something thudded into his midsection. It felt as if she were shoving him with a small fist. Half-dazed from kissing her, he lifted his mouth from hers. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked in a harsh whisper.
“Lord, no,” she whispered back. “And why would you be thinking I wanted that?”
“You were pushing—” He stopped, feeling the sensation again.
Mary giggled. “It wasn’t me, but the babe. He’s moving around, and you must’ve felt him.”
He nearly pushed her off his lap. He caught himself in time and settled for placing his hands firmly on her shoulders and moving her to sit beside him. A sudden frost descended on the gazebo. “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling his insides turn to stone. “I’ve been disrespectful. I’ll see it doesn’t happen again.”
“But Jesse—”
He shot to his feet and took her by the elbow, helping her up and steering her out of the gazebo and across the lawn. He felt dizzy, as if he had nearly leaped over a precipice but had jumped back at the last second.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as they crossed the courthouse lawn. “It’s perfectly natural for the baby to move. There’s nothing in the least wrong with it.”
“I didn’t say there was.”
“Then why did you suddenly stop?”
“Did you really want me to give you a tumble right here and now?” he demanded acidly. “Because that’s where we were headed. Another few minutes and I’d have had your skirts tossed up over your head. Is that what you wanted, Mary?”
“I—”
“Is it?” Cruelty honed a knife edge on his words. “It’s a simple question. Is that what you wanted from me?”
“No. Damn you, Jesse Morgan. You know it wasn’t.”
He turned away from her and strode toward the hotel.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next morning, Mary stood in the parlor lobby of the Pacific House Hotel, observing the people bustling about, most of them leaving after the holiday. Porters rushed back and forth with steamer trunks and valises. Near the front door stood a businessman, nervously opening and closing the lid of his pocket watch as if the motion could make time pass more quickly.
What a grand place this was, as grand as some of the places she had seen in San Francisco. She put aside the memory. That chapter of her life was over. It had to be over. It did no good at all to think about it, for if she did, the fear would co
nquer her.
She smiled a greeting to Mrs. Hapgood, who hurried past with her little boy in tow. Mary pictured a much younger Mrs. Hapgood, frightened and alone, having her baby ripped from her arms.
The image chilled Mary to the bone. Was it true, then? Could a rich man lay claim to a child he had sired?
The very moment the thought crossed her mind, she saw him. He sat high in a thronelike leather chair across the room, his boot propped on a stool while a shoeshine boy buffed it. The pressure of panic built in her throat, higher and higher, until she was certain it would come out as a scream. Her gaze stayed on him as she tried to edge toward the lobby door. He was holding up a newspaper, oblivious to her. Perhaps she had a chance.
She took another step toward the door. Before she reached it, he lowered the newspaper and stared directly at her.
Mary nearly melted into a puddle of relief. It wasn’t him. Her mind was playing tricks on her. She managed to smile wanly at Mr. and Mrs. Cobb from the Ilwaco Mercantile as they passed her. She told herself to stop being silly. She had gotten away, had survived a shipwreck, for mercy’s sake. Surely she had not endured all that only to lose her freedom now.
San Francisco was many miles away.
But he had a residence in Portland. He lived just across the river...with his wife. With his childless wife.
Her teeth started to chatter. Where was Jesse?
Nervously, she fingered the fronds of a potted palm and watched the people in the lobby. Coming here had been a mistake. She had thought that moving out among society was what Jesse needed. He had to stop hiding at the lighthouse.
She hadn’t paused to consider herself. Jesse and the lighthouse made her feel so incredibly safe that she had forgotten that she had a powerful man after her, a man determined to have a child.
Her child.
She swallowed convulsively and noticed that she’d mangled the palm leaf. She rubbed her hands in the folds of her dress.
“You know, I just realized where I’ve seen you before,” someone said.
Mary looked around, startled. Her face went stiff with dislike when she recognized Elliot and Sarah Webber from the previous day. “I’m certain we never met,” she stated.
“He was awake half the night trying to place you.” Sarah’s eyes were narrow and hard. “And finally he remembered.”
“We saw your picture in the paper some weeks ago,” Elliot said triumphantly. “You’re that shipwreck victim.”
“It couldn’t have been my picture,” Mary said, her voice steady but her insides quaking. “There’s been no picture of me.”
“There certainly has,” Sarah said. “It was in the Daily Journal. So Jesse rescued you, and he’s looking after you out of the kindness of his heart.” She sounded relieved. Clearly she hadn’t wanted to believe Jesse could actually care for a dirty Irishwoman by choice.
“You’re wrong,” Mary said. “There’s been no picture.” She invoked all the hauteur she could summon as she swept past them and strode out of the hotel.
She heard Jesse calling her name, but she didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. She went straight to the livery. The stableyard swarmed with boys rushing to and fro, getting the rigs ready for departing guests.
Jesse grabbed her arm, stopped her. “Didn’t you hear me calling to you?”
“I heard.”
He peered into her face. “You’re white as a ghost. Are you ill? Should I send for Dr. Mac—”
“You sent my photograph to the newspapers.” She waited for him to deny it. She didn’t want to know he had betrayed her.
“Of course I did.”
She flinched as if he had struck her. “I asked you not to. I begged you not to.”
“At the time, I knew nothing about you. Your family could have been frantic to find you.” His face darkened as if he had stepped into shadow. “I know what that’s like. The waiting. The wondering.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I might have a very good reason for not wanting my face plastered all over newspapers from coast to coast?”
“Then you should have told me the reason.”
“You never gave me the chance.” Her voice rose, and several people in the stableyard turned to stare at her.
Jesse took her by the elbow and steered her toward the willow tree by the stream. “Tell me, then,” he said.
She hesitated. Why had he betrayed her? Why, after she had told him not to take her photograph, had he sent it out for anyone to see?
I know what it’s like. The waiting. The wondering.
This man, this angry, wounded man had suffered while waiting for news of his wife.
Mary blinked away tears. “I told you from the start that I wanted nothing to do with the man who fathered my baby. I said he was...a mistake. The worst kind of mistake.”
Jesse leaned against the trunk of the tree. He folded his arms across his chest. She could see the wall going up, could see it happen before her eyes. Just as it had last night. The recognition of pain, the withdrawal. The moment he’d felt the baby move inside her, he had drawn away.
“I’m afraid of what would happen if he found me. He...can be a very determined man.”
“Why the hell would you get involved with someone like that?” Jesse asked.
“He can also be very charming.” She could not meet his eyes. “When I arrived in San Francisco, I had nothing. A small bag of coins that were my wages as a ship’s cook, but that was soon gone. There are not many choices for a penniless Irishwoman. A woman who had lost everyone dear in her life. I tried to go into service, but no one would have me. Then I met Mr. Jones, and he was so charming to me, so caring.” She clenched her fists into the fabric of her gown. “He gave me a home, visited me, brought me flowers and sweets.” She closed her eyes, remembering the long dark nights when she had escaped into a world of sensual abandonment, knowing it was a sin, knowing it was for all the wrong reasons, but needing the closeness of another human being as she needed air to breathe.
That was the worst of it, perhaps. Grieving over her family, she had gone knowingly and wantonly into a forbidden relationship. She had fooled herself into thinking they loved each other, just to make it all right. She had given up the most precious, private part of herself just so she wouldn’t feel so alone.
She should have known there would be a price.
Jesse said nothing. The long, slender fronds of the willow tree hung between them, obscuring him from full view. Yet somehow that obscurity made him easier to talk to, like a priest in confession, behind his shield of carved rosewood with the scent of frankincense heavy in the air and the old whispers of the church eddying through the silence.
“I never knew he was married,” she went on, “until it was too late. You see, when I told him...about the baby...he was so happy. I thought he’d want to marry me then, to give the child his name.” She studied the shifting pattern of the morning light through the willow branches. “As it turned out, he wanted the baby.” She took a long breath and swallowed hard. “But he didn’t want me.”
Jesse didn’t stir. She heard the soft hiss of his indrawn breath, as if he’d burned himself.
She wiped her cheeks, feeling the heat of mortification emanating from her skin, from her very soul. “He used me as a broodmare, and after the birth he would have taken the baby from me if I hadn’t managed to sneak away like a thief in the night.”
She felt exhausted after unburdening herself, and she slumped against the trunk of the tree. She wished Jesse would do something, say something. She wished he would touch her. He merely stood in silence, the brim of his hat pulled over his eyes, the whispering leaves stirring in the breeze.
“Being here, among all these people,” Mary said, “reminded me that I’m not out of danger. Particularly since you sent out my picture. The story of Mrs. Hapg
ood giving up her first baby frightened me, Jesse. I’m nobody. I have nothing. The same thing could happen to me. What if he sees that photograph?”
More silence. More soughing of the wind. And then at last, Jesse spoke. “He told you his name was Jones.”
“You don’t think it was?”
He snorted skeptically and walked away. Mary could only stare after him. He was a hard man, she knew that; more than once she’d tasted the bitterness of his callous personality. But surely he should have at least a word of commiseration for her.
He didn’t even look over his shoulder to see if she was following. Which, of course, she was. “I don’t believe you, Jesse Morgan,” she scolded. “I’m in trouble because of something you did and you think you can simply walk away.” In the stableyard, Mrs. Hestia Swann stood awaiting her rig. She was staring at Mary with a stunned expression.
Mary could just imagine what the older woman was thinking. But Mary was furious. She had spent all of last night in misery, all of this morning in fear, and she was tired of it. Jesse deserved a piece of her mind, and by crikey, she was going to give it to him.
“I told you my most private fears,” she said, walking quickly to match his long strides, “and you have nothing to say about it. Nothing at all. Honestly, I sometimes wonder if your head is made of wood. Your heart of stone. Not once did you tell me it would be all right, that you would look after me, that you’d keep me safe.”
He was leading her across the courthouse lawn. She was too angry to wonder where he was going.
“Faith, this is your fault entirely. You were the one who made my photograph. You were the one who sent it out for all the world to see.”
Her words echoed with a hollow sound as they entered the courthouse. Cool dimness surrounded them, and their footfalls rang on the tiled floor.
“Have you nothing to say?” she cried. “By the hand on me, I should hope you would, or—”