by Susan Wiggs
He didn’t seem to expect an answer, which was just as well, for Abigail found herself speechless. When he pressed her back against the bed, she sank willingly beneath him, melting with shock and lust and wonder. He held her gaze with his as his fingers slowly untied the ribbon of her shift. Then he parted the fragile fabric, looked down at her and let a quiet hiss escape him. “On second thought, maybe you’d better hide this particular part of yourself.” He lowered his head for a wickedly intimate kiss. “There is such a thing as too much beauty.”
She shuddered with a flash of nervousness, of wildness.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
“Very sure. But I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do,” he assured her.
Letting impulse take over, she ran her fingers through his hair and traced her hands over his back, lifting herself toward him for a kiss. But when she found a band of ridges across his back, she drew away with a frown. “What is this?” Moving to one side, she gasped. “Jamie, dear God. What are all these scars?”
“A reminder of youthful indiscretion,” he said, reaching to extinguish the lamp. “It was so long ago, I barely remember it.”
“You mean you refuse to speak of it.”
“Love, there’s no need.”
Ah, but there was. He had been hurt, too, and she wanted to know all of his secrets. She wanted to know everything about him.
He skimmed his hand over her bare shoulder and ran it down her arm. “According to Arab lore, the universe consists of seven heavens, one above the other,” he said. “The first is made of emeralds, and the second of red marigolds…” Between his whispered words, he paused to kiss her in places he had no business kissing—except that she wanted him to. She would die if he stopped.
“And the third?”
“Red hyacinth. The fourth of whitest silver, the fifth of gold, the sixth of pearl…” He traveled lower still, his hands leaving fire in their wake. “…and the seventh consists of brilliant light.” His lips found hers, and he kissed her with excruciating slowness. Then he lifted his mouth. “How am I doing, Madame Astronomer?”
Finally, somehow, she found her voice, though it was no more than a whisper. “Oh, I have to believe there are so many more, too many to count.”
A flush spread over her body, and she felt the burn of a hunger she finally understood. It had to do with the things she felt when she danced with him under the stars or studied his forbidden books, or watched a stallion covering a mare. The urge inside her was natural and compelling, with a crude majesty all its own.
Her hands explored at will, moving over him with a mysterious knowledge she hadn’t known she possessed.
He kissed her again and again, and their bodies strained so close that she began to believe the theory of spontaneous combustion might be true. His hands and mouth slid lower again, finding places of such shocking sensitivity that she could hardly breathe. His touch strayed everywhere, awakening every inch of her body, lingering at her knee, calf, ankle…her foot. She tried to tell him what she was feeling, but words had no place in this moment, and the sound that drifted from her was a wild, almost feral cry.
She learned that, for now, she needed no teacher but instinct. She simply touched his strong, scarred body, trying to show him what was in her heart, her hands drawing from him an unguarded response of delight. The contrasting smoothness and hardness of him was a wonder to her, and she surrendered to the knowing gentleness of his caress. When their bodies joined, she gasped and buried her face in his shoulder, overcome by the sweet pain and wonder of her first intimacy.
“Are you all right, love?” He whispered the soothing words in her ear, but she scarcely heard, because her heart beat so loudly in her head.
“I am now,” she said. “Yes, I am.” Guided by instinct alone, she moved beneath him, and the moonlight through the window outlined his shoulders, trembling slightly as he matched her movements with a slow rhythm. In his way, he was more magical than the night sky, looming over her, full of dreams and mysteries, endlessly seductive.
She had the strangest feeling that every moment she’d spent with him had been leading up to this, from the time he caught her in his arms at the Wilkes wedding, through all the laughter and teasing, the absurd lessons in deportment and dancing, the enticing ones in kissing and flirting. Everything seemed designed to bring her here to his arms, his bed. She shut her eyes, and the colors of the seven heavens spun through her mind, emerald and marigold and silver and finally, brilliant light. Then there were no colors or even a coherent thought, only a whirlwind of feelings rising on an updraft of emotion as he took her to the place where stars were born.
In the long moments afterward, neither of them moved. The only sound was that of their breathing, and after the interlude of silence, he lay beside her, tucking her against the curve of his body.
So this was what all the fuss was about, she reflected, finding it ever harder to think with any coherence. No wonder people never spoke of it. There simply weren’t any words for this soaring joy.
Moonlight through the window illuminated Jamie’s face, and she thought perhaps he looked a bit stunned, and more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him.
“Is something the matter?” she whispered.
“I feel like a different man with you,” he said.
She released a drowsy sigh of contentment, and because she couldn’t resist, she slid her open hand across his chest, exploring. “I think I’ve just discovered a new heavenly body.”
“You’re better off spending your time on the roof, looking for comets.”
“Jamie—”
“Abby—”
They both spoke at once, and she laughed a little nervously. “Something is happening to us. This time we’ve spent together has come to mean more to me than you could ever imagine.” She saw him frown in the shadowy light, and hurried on before he could interrupt her. “You showed me so much, Jamie. You taught me to be my very best self. But now I realize I can only be my best when I’m with you. Because you see, another transfer of affection has occurred.”
He stiffened, and she could tell he was bracing himself. “What do you mean?”
“Well, after discovering I was the letter writer, Boyd transferred his affection from Helena to me, just as you predicted. What you neglected to tell me is that our flirtation of letters was only that, a flirtation, shallow and lacking in substance.”
He thrust her away and sat against the pillows. “Did the cad throw you over?”
“No, nothing like that. This is something I’ve discovered, because you taught me to listen to my own heart.” Abigail floundered. She wasn’t saying this well at all. “Heavens, can’t you feel it, too? This—what we did just now, what we are together—is no flirtation, Jamie. It’s very real. More real than anything I’ve ever felt.” She held her breath, waiting for his response.
He stood swiftly, not bothering to cover himself, and tossed the nightgown at her. “Go home, Abby. The tutorial is over.”
“Don’t you understand what I’m saying? I love you.”
The words hung in the air like a forbidden curse.
Then Jamie spat a real curse and pulled on his trousers with insulting haste. “You have no idea what you’re saying.” He tugged Abigail’s gown over her head, stuck the slippers on her feet and pulled her up, wrapping the cloak around her. “You don’t fall in love over something like…what we just did.”
“It’s not only that,” she said. Why was it so hard to make him understand what she now saw so clearly? “We should have realized what was happening, right from the start. We’ve been falling in love moment by moment, day by day, from the first time we met.”
“This has never been about love, but mutual convenience. I wanted to make an ally of your father, you wanted a romance with the vice president’s son. We both got what we wanted, didn’t we? Christ, if you reject the poor sod now, his father will turn right back to the railroad companies, yo
ur father will drop his support of my cause and I’ll lose everything I came here to accomplish. Worse than that, the people of my district will lose. They’ll be turned from their homes, and then what?”
“So a railroad issue is keeping us apart?”
He chuckled. “You know it’s more than that, Abby.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way. If you’d only listen—”
“You don’t love me,” he snapped. “You have better judgment than that. Affection that switches on and off so quickly is not to be trusted.”
“You’re wrong. I do love you, and you love me. I know you do.”
With a gentle shove, he pushed her toward the door. “No, you don’t, and neither do I. And that’s a damned lucky thing, because otherwise, this would be a very sad moment.”
Twenty-Nine
The old Abigail would have given way to tears and hopelessness. She would have accepted defeat with a quiet shrug of her shoulders. She would have cried for hours, all alone, unwilling to upset her father and sister with her misery.
But what she discovered, after Jamie sent her from his bed, was that there were some things that hurt so deeply she couldn’t cry. Weeping would merely trivialize the pain when in fact it was a magnificent wound. When a woman declared her love for a man, went to his bed and offered herself body, heart and soul, she was entitled to collapse when he rejected her.
Abigail did not collapse. Jamie’s dismissal merely sharpened her determination to prove what she knew in her heart was true. Somehow, amidst all the tutoring and teasing, the verbal sparring and political maneuvering, she and Jamie had fallen in love.
He was going to be hoist by his own petard, as the saying went. He’d taught her to dig for the truth behind the façade, that words had a power all their own and that true love happened even against a person’s will. He’d also taught her what heartbreak felt like. She wouldn’t thank him for that, but neither would she surrender to it.
In a state of steely calm, she went to bed and stared at the ceiling. Many years ago, when she was only twelve, she had used silver-leaf paint to depict the night sky there, earnestly and inaccurately arranging the constellations of the zodiac overhead, hoping her father wouldn’t notice and order the ceiling to be repainted.
He’d never said a word about her project. She wasn’t certain he’d even seen it, but something told her he had, long ago.
She slept with surprising soundness and dressed with care, leaving early the next morning before her father or sister arose. They wouldn’t miss her. Often after her late-night sweepings of the sky, she stayed abed with the door shut. They would assume she was still asleep.
But, in fact, she had much to do, and planned her day with the attention to detail of a battle commander.
Stepping from a hansom cab at the corner of Tenth and D Streets, she caught the reflection in a broad shop window of a stylish young woman who carried herself with a certain panache. With a start, she realized the young woman was her.
Somewhere along the way, without really knowing it was happening, Abigail had learned to comport herself differently. When she walked down the street or entered a room, she didn’t shuffle her feet or slump her shoulders as though afraid she might stumble and fall.
She held her head high and forgot to worry about her bad foot. She looked people in the eye and commanded attention. Despite what had transpired between her and Jamie Calhoun the previous night, she kept her composure. Indeed, his rejection made her all the more determined to find out what had turned him so cold and cynical.
She felt the nip of winter in the air, and tucked her hands into her knitted muff. When she walked into the editorial offices of the Washington Post, a young man came instantly to assist her.
“I would like to see Mr. Timothy Doyle, please.”
“Right this way, ma’am.” He led her through a maze of long tables where clerks hunched over typing machines. At one end stood a Linotype operator casting type with a loud, metallic chatter. Telegraph operators sent and received wires at a furious rate. At the end of the room, a row of desks lined one wall. Doyle sat at a rickety oak desk littered with snippings, photographs, invitations, magazines and menus.
He stood immediately, offering his hand in greeting. “Miss Cabot. Such an honor,” he said. “Such an honor. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“This isn’t a social call.” Abigail still remembered Doyle’s reaction when he’d first heard she was going to marry Lieutenant Butler. To remind him of that incident, she allowed a touch of frost to glaze her stare as she looked around the big open room and raised her voice over the clack of machinery. “However, I prefer not to conduct business in a sweatshop.”
“Of course. Shall we step into my private office?”
She nodded, and he held the door for her. “Please, right this way.” The office window offered a view of a pleasant area of town houses and embassies. A line of bare trees marked a cobbled path to a small city commons.
After they seated themselves, Abigail went straight to the point. “In your recent column, to which I confess an unhealthy fascination, you mentioned Princess Layla and her adventure with Jamie Calhoun.”
Doyle leaned back, looking impressed. “I never mentioned Calhoun’s name.”
“Your innuendo was sufficient. I want you to tell me what part of it is true and what you made up in order to sell papers.”
“Miss Cabot, I’m a journalist. I write of factual matters.”
“Even when they humiliate visiting royalty?”
He subjected her to a narrow-eyed stare, but she refused to flinch. “What is it you really want to know?” he demanded, as direct and blunt as she.
Good. She wanted the truth, undisguised by sly insinuation. “Everything,” she stated.
He chuckled. “You must have an appetite for scandal, ma’am.”
“I have an appetite for the truth. Even if it’s upsetting—or unflattering.”
He regarded her sheepishly. “Will I ever live down that remark I made over the telephone?”
“Tell me what I came to know, and I’ll consider letting you apologize.”
He took out a thick file and set it on the table between them. “These are my sources from the original reports. About two years ago, there was a wire from a London correspondent about a scandal in the small principality of Khayrat. A royal princess was discovered to be carrying on with a westerner. She was sentenced to suffer the traditional punishment for her behavior.”
“What sort of punishment?”
“She was to have her nostrils slit.”
Abigail shuddered, picturing the beautiful princess, scarred and humiliated. “Thank God she escaped the mutilation.”
“She didn’t escape. I assume she traded information for mercy and identified her lover as Jamie Calhoun.”
Abigail’s chest tightened with tension. “What did he do?”
“Even after his arrest, he proclaimed the innocence of the princess. He alleged that, despite his attempts to compromise her honor, she had maintained her virtue. He begged punishment for himself. The princess’s family obliged all too willingly. I doubt they were eager to see their daughter disfigured and dishonored. Calhoun was hauled away to prison and sentenced to die by beheading. There was an escape attempt, but he was recaptured.
“Witnesses said the prisoner was tortured to the point of insanity. A hood was tied over his face, and he was dragged to a public parade ground before a crowd of thousands, with platforms built for royalty and dignitaries. The princess was forced to watch.”
Abigail couldn’t feel her fingertips. She had her hands clasped so tightly they’d gone numb. She could feel the color being leached from her face as he spoke, and she must have looked terrible, for he paused.
“Shall I go on? We couldn’t even print the rest of the story. Decency forbade it.”
She was tempted to let him stop, but this was a part of Jamie’s past. If there was any hope of healing his heart, she had to understand the
events that had turned him hard and bitter.
“Don’t spare me a single detail, Mr. Doyle,” she said.
He clenched his fists as he spoke. “First they…cut off his hands, one at a time. Then they took his head. They say the princess’s screams could be heard above the roar of the crowd until she fainted dead away. The accused man’s body was left to be devoured by wild dogs.” He exhaled with a shudder. “So Jamie Calhoun escaped. What we don’t know is who was killed in his place.”
Abigail sat silent, battling nausea and listening to the cold wind rattling the office window as she pictured the strange and violent scene.
Her blood chilled. Because unlike Doyle, she did know.
Intent on finding the rest of the answers, she went straight to the splendid row houses of Willard Square, where foreign legations and visitors often stayed. Doyle had given her the address of the residence where the Khayrati legation was staying. Outside, it resembled all the other staid greystones of the area, and she calmly gave her name and made her request to the guard posted there. Moments later, a man of enormous girth and height summoned her to follow him. Although his size was intimidating, his face was as round and mild as a summer moon.
Past wrought-iron gates and a stone archway, the house resembled the Alhambra in miniature. A courtyard tiled in intricate geometric designs surrounded a burbling fountain. Servants and officials moved quietly along the colonnaded archway at the periphery. Abigail had the eerie impression that she’d stepped into another world, someplace foreign and exotic…and dangerous.
Her escort led her through the colonnade and up a flight of stairs. He spoke briefly to a robed serving woman who motioned Abigail inside. She found herself in a perfumed cave of red silk. As Abigail surrendered her wrap to the woman, the foreign princess stood to greet her.
Without the half veil, she was even more stunningly beautiful than Abigail had imagined. Her dark coloring and lush lips echoed the provocative images depicted in Jamie’s books, and her watchful eyes held secrets the old Abigail would have been too timid to probe.