“That doesn’t always matter,” Steven argued, gripping her hands a little tighter. His eyes searched her face. “Emma, are you sure you’re well? You look pale.”
“Of course she’s pale,” Cyrus pointed out gruffly. “man she loves is locked up in the hoosegow.”
Smiling for the first time since she’d arrived in New Orleans, Emma said, “I have a message from Nathaniel. He says he’s kept your things for you.”
Steven allowed himself a slight, sad grin. “He’s forgiven me, then?”
Cyrus interrupted with a harumph. “Forgiven you?
He’s a Fairfax. My guess is, he won’t do any forgiving until he’s come after you with a bullwhip and you’ve tanned his hide for him.”
Emma winced, and Steven gave her hands another squeeze. “I can still handle Nathaniel,” he reminded her.
A guard came to stand behind Steven’s chair, and although he gave Cyrus a deferential look, he spoke roughly to the prisoner. “Visit’s over, Fairfax.”
Slowly, Steven stood. He held Emma’s hands, running his thumbs over the knuckles, then turned and walked away.
Emma’s heart, broken for the first time on an orphan train years before, cracked in all the mended places. Gently, Cyrus took her arm and led her away.
“I can’t bear it,” she sobbed in the privacy of the carriage.
Cyrus pressed her head to his shoulder and patted her back. “Now, now, Emma, darlin’. You will bear it, because you have to. Your husband is depending on you.”
Emma nodded, but she couldn’t stop crying.
“I was real proud of you in there,” Cyrus comforted. “You did just fine for a Yankee.”
Emma reared back to look into his face and laughed, despite everything, at the mischief she saw in his wise, gentle eyes.
“Does it bother you that your grandson married a northerner?” she asked, when she’d recovered herself a little and her sobs had subsided to sniffles.
Cyrus smiled. “If you can get used to a bunch of Rebels, we can get used to you. Now, it seems to me that Miss Lucy was right. You’re pretty as a magnolia blossom, but you need some new clothes.”
With that announcement, Cyrus rapped at the back of the carriage wall and the elegant vehicle came to a stop.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Fairfax?” the driver asked, getting down from the box to peer in through the window.
“We want to go to that fancy shop where Miss Lucy used to have her things made,” Cyrus told him.
The driver nodded, and then the carriage was moving again.
Soon Emma was being measured for dresses and skirts, ballgowns and blouses, all of the highest quality and latest style. It was ironic, she thought, since she would gladly wear burlap if she could just be with Steven.
Garrick Wright had been Steven’s best friend at St. Mat of yo’s throughout the war and during his days as a prodigal. Now Garrick was his lawyer. Despite his reputation and eloquence, it took him a solid week to effect his client’s release on bail.
“I was finally able to convince Judge Willoughby that if you were willing to come back here and risk your life to clear your name you weren’t likely to light out if he set bail,” Garrick told him as they walked out into the fresh air, a blue sky arched above them. “He did, and Cyrus paid it.”
Steven rotated his shoulders once, feeling as though he’d spent the last seven days standing in a dark, narrow closet. He smiled when he saw his grandfather step down from a carriage waiting in the street, his hand extended.
“Where’s Emma?” was his first question.
“She’s at home,” Cyrus answered immediately. “I didn’t want to get her hopes up until after bail was set.”
Steven ached to touch her, to lie beside her, to hold her and be held by her. He couldn’t get back to Fairhaven fast enough. He climbed into the carriage, leaving Cyrus and Garrick to follow after him.
Garrick, who was tall, with slicked-down fair hair parted in the middle, and mirrorlike gray eyes, settled in the seat across from Steven’s, beside Cyrus. “Who else could have killed Mary?” the young attorney asked, speaking as much to himself as to his companions.
Steven glanced in his grandfather’s direction, cleared his throat, and said, “Macon might have done it. God knows, he wouldn’t hesitate to frame me.”
Cyrus shifted uncomfortably on the seat, without offering a comment. Even though there was no love lost between him and his eldest grandson, the old man had a deep regard for kinship. He clearly didn’t like thinking Macon might be guilty not only of murder, but of bearing false witness.
“Did he have another motive? Murder is a big risk to take, just because you want to set someone else up.” Garrick’s reasoning was sound, as always.
“That’s what we need to find out,” Steven answered grimly. He was having a hard time keeping his mind on the conversation, crucial though it was. Not a minute had passed during the last week that he hadn’t thought about Emma and yearned for the sweet consolations of her presence. “I didn’t come back here to hang,” he added after a long time. “I want to make a life for myself, and for Emma.”
“You must,” Garrick sighed, “to take a chance like this. Frankly, I wouldn’t have advised you to return. We might have been able to settle things with you at a safe distance.”
When they reached Fairhaven, Steven deliberately hesitated to leave the carriage, detaining Garrick with a look. When Cyrus had gone inside and they were alone, he said, “Find out if Macon had any ties to Mary, beyond her dalliance with Dirk.”
Garrick nodded, and a cautious grin curved his lips when he glanced toward the elegant house. “Is that Emma?” he asked.
Steven turned to see her standing in the doorway, clad in a gold silk dress. “Yes,” he said, breathing the word because he didn’t have the strength to sa it. He stepped out of the carriage and stood beside it, just looking at her. Memorizing every curve and line of her face and her body, storing away the image of the sunshine catching in her glorious coppery-blonde hair.
A myriad of emotions moved across her face before she flung herself down the marble steps and into his arms.
Steven held her very close and closed his eyes for a moment, just to savor her nearness. “I love you,” he said, his lips moving lightly against her temple, and she trembled in his embrace, then looked up at him fearfully, as though she didn’t believe he was really there.
“There’s no baby,” she whispered brokenly, blurting the words as if the knowledge had been a burden too heavy to bear.
He was eager to console Emma, to touch and hold her freely. “It’s all right,” he said gently, and it was. After a moment, they went into the house.
Neither of them spoke again until they’d reached the privacy of their room, with its massive four-poster bed, lace curtains, and gracious view of the garden.
After locking the door, Steven turned to Emma and drew her into his arms again.
He felt so solid and so strong. Emma spread her hands out against his chest and tilted her head back for his kiss.
It was full of hungry restraint. He shaped her lips with his own, then sought entry with his tongue, and Emma granted it willingly, a little moan of surrender sounding in her throat.
His hand rose to the outer rounding of her breast, his thumb stroking the nipple that pulsed beneath the low-cut bodice of her new silk dress. “You were all I thought about,” he breathed, his lips moving against hers. “Oh, God, Emma—I need you so much.”
She smoothed away his jacket, reached for his belt buckle, and unfastened it with awkward hands. He cupped his hands around her bottom and pressed her to him while she opened his shirt. She felt his hard power against her, trembled at the knowledge that it would soon be deep inside her.
Pushing aside the front of his shirt, she spread her hands over the hairy expanse of his chest and felt his nipples harden against her palms. She whispered his name in an anguish of need.
He released her bottom to deal with the buttons at the back
of her dress. When he’d undone them all, he pulled down the soft bodice. She was wearing no camisole, since the gown was revealingly cut, and he drew in an audible breath at the sight of her swollen pink-tipped breasts.
Emma felt his trembling, knew he was struggling with the need to take her swiftly, fiercely, without any of the intimate preparations he usually made. And Emma wanted to be taken, like the woman of a primitive warrior.
He pushed her dress down over her slim, rounded hips, only to find a starched petticoat beneath.
He smiled at that and dispensed with the ruffled, ribbon-trimmed garment, leaving Emma standing before him in a pool of white satin and gold silk, wearing only her taffeta drawers and black velvet slippers.
The drawers had pink ribbons for ties, but Steven didn’t move to touch them. Instead he whispered gruffly, “Take them off.”
Quickly, Emma untied the ribbons and pushed the taffeta knickers downward, stepping out of them. A soft breeze from the windows caressed her satiny skin as she stood there before him, utterly naked, and her nipples peaked to a tautness that was almost painful. Instinctively she folded her arms across her chest.
Steven took hold of her wrists, however, and made her show herself. His gaze was warm, making her feel as though she were bared to direct sunshine.
“So beautiful,” he said.
He led her to a chaise longue beneath the billowing lace curtains at the windows and spread her there, legs apart, feet touching the soft Persian rug. His eyes never left her as he stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside, then kicked off his boots and removed his trousers and stockings.
Gilded in sunlight, he seemed perfectly formed to Emma, like a man from a Greek myth. His rod stood high and hard and proud, and Emma’s eyes were drawn to it, though she blushed at the sight.
“Give me your baby,” she whispered.
He came and sat astraddle of the chaise, his knees touching Emma’s. His eyes burned into hers, vaguely troubled now, as he laid both hands to her breasts, fondling them until she whimpered and arched her back slightly.
Steven chuckled at her fiery submission, his hands moving down over the sides of her waist, along her hips. His thumbs met on her abdomen, making small, interlocking circles just above the silken nest where her womanhood throbbed.
Presently he lifted Emma’s right knee so that her foot rested on his thigh. He did the same with her other knee, and she tensed and closed her eyes when she felt him part the curtain that had hidden her from him.
His three middle fingers slid inside her, while his thumb caressed the hard, moist nubbin so completely vulnerable to him.
“Steven,” she pleaded.
“Shh,” he said, and bent to take slow suckle at one of her breasts, all the while continuing his brazen mastery of her body.
“Take me,” she whispered. “Please—oh, Steven—make me yours—”
He went to the other breast, and was greedy in his enjoyment.
Emma’s knees went wide of each other and then tried to close—the pleasure was too intense to be borne—but Steven blocked them with his shoulders. Leaving her breast, he kissed his way down the inside of her right thigh, making the flesh quiver beneath his warm, moist lips. Then gripping Emma’s ankles in both hands, he slid downward.
Gruffly, he gave an order, and with trembling, hasty hands, Emma parted herself for the most brazen of pleasuring.
He set her to moaning by giving her several long, slow laps with his tongue. Then he sucked her, as voraciously as he had feasted at her nipple, and Emma’s hips writhed in surrender.
Finally, in the throes of a passion so keen that it left no room for decorum or restraint, Emma climaxed, her body buckling beneath Steven’s ruthless attentions.
But when he had satisfied ully, he turned away. After long moments of standing silently with his back to her, he wrenched on his clothes and left the room without a word.
Despite the sweet hum in her body, Emma was wounded. Perhaps Steven was already growing tired of her, wishing he hadn’t married with such haste. Perhaps he didn’t love her anymore.
She curled up in a quiet part of her soul, too shaken and confused to weep, and went to sleep.
Holding a ball at Fairhaven was Cyrus’s idea. He wanted to show the entire parish, he said at dinner one night soon after Steven’s release, that the Fairfaxes were presenting a united front, irrespective of the epidemic. That they would stand together in asserting Steven’s innocence. Emma was surprised to hear Macon would be there.
On the night of the ball, she avoided him carefully, lifting the skirts of her embroidered blue organdy dress as she mounted the stairs in search of Steven.
In the hallway outside their room, she encountered Lucy. To Emma’s disappointment, her sister-in-law was dressed in black, as always.
Emma smiled at her and swallowed a suggestion that Lucy borrow something of hers to wear to the ball. Lucy gazed at her with red-rimmed eyes, looking for all the world like a mourner fresh from a funeral.
“Is everything all right?” Emma asked, reaching out to touch Lucy’s arm.
Lucy nodded a little frantically, and while Emma knew the gesture for an unspoken lie, there was nothing she could do about it.
Reluctantly, Emma left her sister-in-law in the hallway and entered the bedroom she shared with her husband. Although the strain of his impending trial showed in the lines of his shoulders and the distracted look in his eyes, and he had taken to sleeping in another room, Steven was bearing up well. He and Garrick met every day to discuss strategy, and sometimes they went out together for hours at a time.
“Nervous?” Emma asked, standing behind Steven as he scowled into the mirror, battling his tie.
“No,” he lied, and Emma stepped in front of him and took over the recalcitrant tie.
“It’s important that you seem confident,” Emma reminded him softly, her hands resting on his lapels now. Because she loved Steven so much, she was trying hard to put aside her own questions and fears for his sake. “Some of those people downstairs will probably serve on your jury.”
“How many times do I have to be tried?” he rasped impatiently. “Emma, it could be months before my case comes to trial—”
She stood on tiptoe to kiss him gently on the lips. “Don’t try to deal with the whole thing all at once,” she scolded. “You’ve got to take one day, one hour, one moment at a time. We all do.”
Steven sighed. “You’re right,” he conceded, laying his hands gently on the sides of her waist and letting his forehead rest against hers. And then he changed the subject. “Did you ever write to your mother in Chicago?”
“Yes,” Emma said. “Naturally, I haven’t heard back yet—it’s much too soon. I wrote to Chloe, too, of course, to let her know we got here safely.”
He kissed her forehead, then stepped away. There was mischief mingled with the weariness and strain in his eyes when he went to the armoire, opened the carved mahogany doors, and took a sizable box from the shelf.
Emma was seated on the bed by this time, and he brought the box to her and laid it in her lap. She looked at it in confusion. “What—”
“My mother’s jewels,” Steven explained, and though his voice was hoarse, his manner was almost offhand. “They’re about all she had to show for her years with my father, except for me, of course. They were hidden in the wine cellar during the occupation.”
“I don’t understand,” Emma said, staring at him.
“They’re yours now,” he replied, with a gesture meant to convey that if she didn’t want to wear the jewelry, he’d understand.
Emma lifted the lid slowly, and her eyes were met by a dazzling diamond choker set with dozens of stones. Beneath it were pearls with a milky glow to them, and an amethyst ring that would reach from knuckle to joint. There were bracelets of emeralds and rubies, and topaz earrings encircled with diamonds.
Emma was so overwhelmed that she slammed the box closed and stared at Steven with wide eyes.
He took i
t gently from her hands, opened it, and lifted out the diamond choker. Then he put the magnificent piece around her neck and fastened it.
Emma blinked as he pulled her to her feet.
“Don’t you like them?” Steven asked, his voice low and gruff, his eyes searching hers.
“Of course I like them,” Emma whispered, her fingers rising to touch the band of perfect stones at her throat. “It’s just that—well—I never expected to have anything like this—”
His hazel eyes danced as he looked down into her face. “Not even as a Whitneyville Whitney?” he teased.
Emma gave a strangled little laugh and socked him ineffectually in the shoulder. “No. Not even as a Whitney.”
Steven’s finger curved under her chin. “Someday our daughter will wear them.”
His words reassured her slightly, even though they reminded her of all that was at stake. Happy, productive years together. Children who might never be born. Laughter and tears that might never be shared. Her throat constricted, for the boxful of jewels paled by comparison to all she would lose if they were to find Steven guilty and hanged him.
“Now, now,” Steven reproached her huskily, reading her thoughts in her eyes. “Who was it who just told me to live in the moment, and let the future take care of itself?”
Emma drew a deep breath, let it out again, and nodded. She was ready to face the people who had been arriving at Fairhaven for the past hour. Steven put the jewel box back into the armoire and offered his arm to Emma, and she took it.
They descended the stairs arm in arm, their smiles bright and confident, betraying no hint of what they botfeared. He put his arms around her for the first dance of the evening. When that ended, Cyrus took Emma from group to group, proudly introducing her as his new granddaughter, while Steven renewed his acquaintances with still other guests.
Although she had hoped to, Emma wasn’t able to evade Macon, and ended up waltzing around the ballroom in his arms. Remembering Cyrus’s wish for the family at least to seem unified, she smiled up at him woodenly and tried to endure the enforced contact.
Obviously enjoying her dilemma, Macon made a point of reiterating his plan to make Emma his paramour. “We’ll begin the evening of his funeral, I think,” he said, grinning as furious color rose in Emma’s face. “You’ll need consoling.”
Emma and the Outlaw Page 28