Sometime later, when Emma finally worked up the courage to follow, she went to the bedroom they’d shared so briefly. He was in the next room, packing.
Emma sat down on the edge of the bed, holding the little photograph of her and Lily and Caroline and running one finger slowly, repeatedly, around its oval frame, as if to conjure her sisters like some magician in a storybook.
Cyrus Fairfax was so angry that his face went florid and his white mustache quivered. He tossed back his brandy and slammed the glass down hard on the surface of his desk. “By God, if I were twenty years younger,” he thundered, “Itter how d drag you outside and horsewhip you!”
Steven would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so grave. But as it was, he was going to lose both his life and Emma, and one was as precious as the other.
“I never should have brought her here in the first place,” he said quietly, staring down into his own glass of whiskey. The drink had left a sour taste in his mouth, and he set it aside. “I took Emma away from the people and places she knew, so she could live with strangers—one of whom delights in telling her he’s going to make her his mistress as soon as I’m gone.”
Cyrus glared at his grandson. “So you’ve given up,” he said. “I thought you were better than that.”
Steven turned away to stand looking out over the sloping lawn where he’d hoped to see his children play. And perhaps even his grandchildren. “Garrick and I have questioned everybody we could find, and we’ve come up with exactly nothing,” he reflected, ignoring his grandfather’s jibe. “My trial is scheduled to start on Monday morning, and all we’ve got is my statement that I’m innocent and the fact that I came back to face the charges.” He turned just far enough to look back at Cyrus over one shoulder. “If I hang, I’ll do it knowing that Macon plans to make Emma’s life a living hell.”
Cyrus sat down heavily in the leather chair behind his desk. “You can count on me to look after Emma if things go wrong. You know that.”
Steven went to stand facing his grandfather, his hands clasping the edge of the desk, his gaze level. “I want you to swear to me by all that’s holy that you’ll get Emma out of here the minute I’m sentenced.”
The old man took a cigar from the box at his elbow and offered it to Steven. When his grandson refused with a shake of the head, Cyrus slipped off the paper band and tossed it into the trash basket. Then he bit off the end of the cigar, spat it away, and lit a match. “Seems to me you’re living in the future, boy,” he commented at last. “You haven’t even been tried and you’re already climbing the gallows steps.” Puffs of blue smoke encircled his head as he drew on the cigar.
“Do I have your word?” Steven demanded.
“You know you do,” Cyrus replied. “Macon won’t lay a hand on her. What did she say when you told her you didn’t want to be her husband anymore?”
Steven shoved a hand through his hair, ashamed of the memory. “She said she didn’t believe me—called me a liar.”
Cyrus chuckled ruefully. “Then you started moving your things out of the house. You’re a fool if I’ve ever seen one, Steven Fairfax. Now you go find that brave little wife of yours and you make up to her, or you’ll have me to answer to.”
Steven sighed, then turned and walked out of his grandfather’s study, leaving the door open behind him.
His spirit hungered for Emma as voraciously as his body did, and he knew he could no longer keep himself from going to her. Even the fear of siring a child who would grow up without a father failed to hold him back.
He knocked at the door of the room they’d shared and, receiving no answer, tried the knob. It gave, and he stepped inside.
There was no sign of Emma, and for several terrible moments Steven thought she’d actually taken him at his word and left Fairhaven forever. The pain that idea caused him was beyond anything he’d imagined.
He went to the huge armoire and opened it. Her gowns were still there, and her jewel box was on the shelf, but these things offered no comfort. Emma’s pride would have made her leave them behind.
Steven turned and crossed the room to their bed, wrenched open the drawer in the nightstand, and closed his hand around a small, oval-shaped object. He gave an audible sigh of relief as he lifted out the framed photograph of Emma, Lily, and Caroline. She hadn’t left him; she wouldn’t go without taking the picture.
He put the photograph in plain view on the nightstand and strode out of the room. Concern was beginning to replace relief. He felt compelled to find Emma, to see that she was all right, to apologize to her.
But he’d been away so much, working on his case with Garrick, that he had no idea where or how she spent her time. He made his way down the hallway to Lucy’s door.
A cheerful “Come in,” was the response to his knock.
“Have you seen Emma?” he asked of his sister-in-law, who was sitting in a chair beside the window with a baby doll lying in her lap.
Lucy didn’t look at him. She was smiling down at the doll as she gently entangled one finger in the golden curl at its forehead. Her voice had an odd, childlike quality. “She’s gone to town in the carriage,” she answered.
Knowing he’d learn nothing more from Lucy, feeling sick on some deep level of his soul, Steven walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.
Thoughtful, he made his way down the stairs and out through one of the rear doors. Reaching the stables, he chose a horse and began to saddle it.
The carriage rattled briskly over the road, and Emma sat fanning herself inside. She felt vaguely nauseated, but she attributed that to the situation with Steven, and the heat. She was too emotionally drained to cry, although her eyes stung with unshed tears and her throat ached.
The first stop, just as Emma had ordered, was at Astoria McCall’s run-down house. She rang the bell, and Miss Astoria herself answered the door.
Seeing her jeweled fingers, it struck Emma that Astoria McCall might not be so poor after all. Perhaps she was just bitter, and too despondent to care about such things as keeping up her property and socializing with her friends and neighbors.
“You,” Miss Astoria said coldly.
Emma squared her shoulders. “I’m looking for Maisie Lee.”
“Well, she isn’t here,” grumbled the aging spinster. “She’s home with that drunken husband of hers.aby doll l1; Miss McCall started to close the door, but Emma blocked the effort with her shoulder.
“Where does Maisie Lee live?” she insisted politely.
“Heavens,” barked Miss McCall. “I don’t know! Down by the harbor somewhere, in one of those back-street hovels.”
“You must have an address in your records somewhere,” Emma pressed, refusing to budge an inch.
Astoria glowered at her, but Emma wasn’t intimidated. No one could possibly hurt her as badly as Steven had by telling her he no longer loved her; she could wander the world without fear.
“Oh, all right,” the older woman snapped, turning and disappearing into that shadowy, musty house.
Emma stepped inside the foyer to wait, looking around her and seeing cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. The place ought to be swept down, she thought, and all the windows thrown open to the fresh air and the light.
Presently Astoria McCall returned with a scrap of paper clutched in one hand. “Here,” she snapped. “And it’ll be on your conscience if Jethro beats the poor girl half-senseless for meddling in matters that are none of her affair.”
Emma had no desire to get Maisie Lee into trouble. She only wanted to find out what the frightened woman knew and was keeping to herself. “Thank you,” Emma said, as though she and Astoria had just passed an enjoyable time together. “And good day.”
The carriage driver frowned when Emma handed the address up to him, but he must have seen how determined she was because he gave her no argument.
In the part of town where Maisie Lee lived, which was near the waterfront, the houses were close together and seemingly filled to the
rafters with people. Mahoganyskinned children ran barefoot over broken cobblestones, and the smells of fish, horse dung, garbage, and urine made the thick air nearly unbreathable.
When the carriage came to a stop, Emma got down on her own before the driver could help her.
“Miss Emma,” he began nervously, “Mr. Steven wouldn’t like my bringing you here, ‘specially with the sickness everywhere like it is.”
“I won’t be long,” Emma answered, her eyes already scanning the walls of the brick buildings for numbers. There were none, so she approached a trio of little boys playing marbles. Reaching into her handbag, she produced a coin for each of them. When she had their undivided attention she asked, “Where does Maisie Lee Simpson live?”
One of the boys pointed, wide-eyed, toward the end of the street. “Down there, where the flowerpot is.”
Emma nodded her thanks and proceeded toward the house in question. The driver followed along beside her in the carriage, and she could feel his puzzled gaze as she walked.
The chipped clay flowerpot contained a single, drooping red geranium badly in need of water. Emma felt sorry for it as she knocked at the rickety door of Maisie Lee’s house.
She pulled it just far enough open to peer out at Emma, and her eyes went wide when she saw who the visitor was.
“Are you alone?” Emma asked.
Maisie Lee nodded, almost wildly, but she made no move to admit her caller.
“Then may I come in, please?” Emma pressed.
Reluctantly, Maisie Lee stepped back, and Emma entered a room that was crowded but quite clean. Several small children played on the floor, and laundry had been strung between two walls.
Maisie Lee’s huge eyes kept darting toward the door, as though she expected Satan himself to burst through it and drag her off to hell. “What you want, Missus?” she pleaded.
“You know something about the night Mary McCall was murdered—something you haven’t told anyone. I want to know what it is.”
The black woman retreated a step, hoisting one of the children onto her hip when it began to cry. “I don’t know nothin’,” Maisie Lee protested, sounding a bit desperate.
“You do, and my husband is going to hang if you don’t tell me. Who was there that night, Maisie Lee? Was it Macon Fairfax?”
Maisie Lee’s eyes went wider still. “No, ma’am, I didn’t see Mr. Macon. I swear to God I didn’t.”
“But you saw someone, and it wasn’t Steven. Whom did you see?”
Maisie Lee looked at the door again. “My man’ll be home soon,” she fretted. “He don’t like me to have company.”
Emma sighed, then pleaded, “You’ve got to help me.”
Great tears welled in Maisie Lee’s eyes and glistened there. One made a crooked path down her cheek when she shook her head. “I can’t, missus,” she said. “I don’t know nothin’. I swear—”
Emma’s discouragement went soul-deep. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “If you decide to tell the truth, Maisie Lee, send word to Fairhaven.”
Maisie Lee swallowed hard but didn’t speak again. She held the now-squalling child a little closer as Emma opened the door to leave.
On the threshold she encountered one of the largest men she had ever seen. He was obviously Maisie Lee’s man, and he didn’t look pleased to see company. He fairly seethed with hatred as Emma eased past him and hurried down the walk, where the agitated driver was waiting with the carriage door open.
Just as Emma was settling herself in the tufted leather seat, she heard a scream from inside the house and closed her eyes briefly against the images that crowded her mind. Maisie Lee’s man stepped outside just long enough to kick the geranium pot onto the sidewalk, where it splintered, sending dry dirt everywhere and revealing the plant’s naked roots. Then he went back in again and slammed the door.
“Hyah!” the anxious driver yelled to the horses, just when Emma was ready to go back and try to protect Maisie Lee.
Sadly, she looked down at her hands. She probably wouldn’t have been much help anyway. In fact, just as Astoria had said, it thresholder fault Jethro was angry with Maisie Lee, and if the woman suffered, that would be because of Emma, too.
She was completely discouraged by the time she reached Fairhaven’s front door.
The driver tried to help Emma down, but he found himself elbowed aside by a tight-jawed Steven.
“Where the hell have you been?” Emma’s husband demanded, grasping her shoulders in his hands.
Emma met his eyes steadily. “What do you care?” she countered.
His hands came to rest on her cheeks. “I care,” he answered.
Emma pulled away from him and started to walk into the house, but he caught hold of her hand and pulled her back.
“We’re going to talk,” he announced, and then he dragged her around the front of the house, through the complex and well-tended garden, where Lucy liked to spend time when she was having a good day. He didn’t stop until they’d reached the screened summerhouse, which was practically overgrown with wisteria.
Opening the door, Steven pulled Emma inside, and she was amazed to see that the place was relatively clean. There were narrow beds with mattresses on them, and several wicker chairs with worn cushions.
“I used to sleep out here sometimes when I first came to Fairhaven,” Steven said.
Emma’s lower lip was caught between her teeth. She prayed Steven wasn’t going to hurt her anymore, because she wouldn’t be able to bear it. “Do you still want to send me away?” she dared to ask.
“Yes,” Steven answered forthrightly. “I’d still rather see you safe in Whitneyville, with Chloe to look after you.”
Emma was wounded, but she held her head up nonetheless and kept her shoulders straight. “I see.”
He curved one hand under her chin. “I don’t think you do, Emma,” he said huskily. “I lied before—I’ve never loved you more than I do right now, this minute. You were right in the first place—I wanted you to leave Fairhaven so Macon couldn’t hurt you, so you wouldn’t have to see—”
Emma’s heart pounded with relief, and she slipped her arms around Steven’s middle and rested her cheek against his chest. “Thank God,” she whispered.
He held her very close. “Where were you today, Emma? What were you doing?”
Emma didn’t dare admit she’d gone to see Maisie Lee; Steven had been furious the last time she’d meddled in his case. “Does that matter?” she hedged.
He chuckled ruefully and kissed her forehead. “No, I guess it doesn’t.” He lifted her chin again, and his eyes searched hers. “I’m sorry, Emma. For everything.”
The tears she hadn’t been able to shed filled Emma’s eyes. “Hold me,” she said, her arms slipping around his neck. “Tell me everything is going to be all right.”
His embrace tightened, but he didn’t speak, and em”>Emma w knew it was because he couldn’t make himself say the words.
Need of a kind she’d never experienced before was born in Emma’s tired, trembling body. She pulled Steven’s head down for a kiss that said everything.
With a groan, he broke away. He started to lift Emma into his arms, and she knew he meant to carry her inside the house and upstairs to their bedroom.
“No,” Emma whispered, touching his lips with her finger. “Here, where I can smell the flowers and hear the bees. Right here, Steven.”
For a long moment he stared at her as though mesmerized, but then he kissed her so thoroughly that Emma’s knees weakened. While she was still leaning against him, struggling to recover, he began unfastening the row of buttons at the back of her dress.
When he’d finished, he tugged the bodice downward, revealing Emma’s breasts. She pulled her arms from the sleeves and then stepped completely out of the dress, standing before Steven in nothing but her drawers and petticoats.
He stripped her of the petticoats, leaving just her drawers, and lifted her by the waist, so that she was forced to wrap her legs around hi
s hips and feel the possession that awaited her. His mouth took the nipple of her bare breast, and he drew on it greedily.
Emma clung to him, her head tilted slightly back, a little whimper escaping her as he shifted his hips, teasing her with the elemental power he held over her.
He went to her other breast and feasted there, and Emma’s hand moved feverishly in his hair, pressing him closer. “Tell me what you want,” he muttered, when he’d drained her of the intangible nectar he so craved.
“You,” Emma moaned fitfully. “I want you. Oh, Steven, please—don’t make me wait—not this time—it’s been so long and I need you so much—”
He put one of his hands between her legs and gripped her boldly where her knickers were damp, and Emma groaned loudly, riding up on him, seeking to take him in.
Steven reached inside her drawers to find the hidden nubbin and tease it with his fingers. She grew moister still, and all the more frantic. “Oh, no,” he whispered, “I’m not going to make it easy. I want everything you have to give, Emma—everything.”
She whimpered, because she knew what that meant—a long, slow session of lovemaking, with Steven coaxing her to release after release before he finally entered her and provided the final satisfaction. “Please,” she begged.
But he went back to her breast, even as he continued to tease and manipulate the most vulnerable part of her body. Emma was like a wild creature, clawing at his shoulders and back with her hands, trying to close her legs around him.
Presently he took away her drawers, laid her on one of the old mattresses and knelt between her legs, gripping her by the ankles and setting her feet wide apart. Emma cried out when he fell to her, writhing as he consumed her without hesitation or mercy.
Her head tossed from side to side as she felt her senses escalating toward an explosion powerful enough to tear her asunder. She sobbed Steven’s name as her body convulsd in frantic surrender and her thighs pressed close against his head.
He did not leave her until she was lying still again, quivering with satisfaction and that peculiar, sweet fury that comes of being totally mastered. He kissed her lightly on the belly while she berated him in gasped, husky words, and he punished the insurrection by having a second helping, although this time he made Emma stand over him, utterly vulnerable.
Emma and the Outlaw Page 31