Jade Star

by Catherine Coulter

  Jules was on her side, facing away from him, the sheet pulled to her chin. He sighed with some relief, eased out of his clothes, and slipped in beside her. She didn’t stir.

  He slept fitfully, until finally he was lost in that vague, blurred state that seemed so real, so very vivid. Jane Branigan was beside him, touching him, laughing and teasing him, and he was in such great need of her he thought he would die. Then they were lying together and he was stroking her body, calling, “Jane, my God, Jane.” He felt her soft breasts, felt her nipples tauten from the teasing of his fingers. God, he wanted her, and now.

  “Jane,” he whispered, nuzzling against her throat. She wasn’t naked, as she should have been. She was wearing something, and the starchy material scratched his mouth. He felt nothing but urgency, and rose over her, pulling the offending nightgown up above her breasts. The touch of her warm flesh made him crazy. His hands and mouth covered her breasts, her smooth, soft belly. He lay atop her, moaning aloud. His manhood, throbbing, urgent, pressed against her closed thighs.

  “Jane,” he whispered, moving restlessly over her. “I can’t wait, Jane.”

  He pulled her legs apart and felt his manhood surge forward. But she wasn’t ready for him, wouldn’t let him enter her. He was frantic now, not understanding.

  “Jane,” he said again, “what’s wrong?”

  Jules came abruptly awake. She heard Michael’s voice repeating a name. Not her name. Jane. She was suddenly aware that a man, a huge man, was covering her, pressing her down into the mattress, and she cried out, her mind, blurred with sleep, thinking it John Bleecher or Jameson Wilkes. Then something deep within her cried out, refusing to accept the terror of a dream. No, she was with Michael. It was he covering her, pressing against her.

  She tried to rise, bewildered, not understanding. She heard him moaning deeply, telling her between gasping breaths to relax, to give in to him. But something was terribly wrong. Telling Jane to relax! Suddenly she felt his hand probing against her, felt that male part of him pushing forward against her.

  Saint felt wild with need, frustrated and angry that he couldn’t enter her body. He felt Jane trying to push him away; then he heard a sharp cry of pain.

  “Michael! No . . . please!”

  He came awake with jolting awareness. “Jane,” he said stupidly, then drew in his breath sharply. In the dim light of dawn, he saw Jules sprawled helplessly beneath him, and he was trying to force himself inside her.

  “Oh God, no!” He pulled himself up and rested on his haunches, his head in his hands. He’d very nearly forced his wife without realizing what he was doing.

  Jules lay very still. He was on his knees between her widespread legs. “Michael?” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” he managed, hating himself more at that moment than at any other in his entire life. “I’m sorry, Jules. I didn’t hurt you, did I? Are you all right?”

  She frowned at him, uncertain, becoming more bewildered by the moment. “I don’t understand.”

  He retreated quickly, rising from the bed and shrugging into his dressing gown. Of course she didn’t understand. Lord, it was difficult enough for him to comprehend.

  “Who is Jane?” he heard her ask.

  He turned slowly to face her, and was relieved to see that she’d pulled down her nightgown and was leaning against the pillows.

  He walked to the bed and sat down beside her. “I know you don’t understand, Jules.” He paused a moment, uncertain what to say. Finally he continued. “I was dreaming, a result of all the damned whiskey, I suppose.” Liar! You’re randy as hell and supposed to only sleep with your wife, not rut her! “I didn’t realize what I was doing. Jules, I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “Jut a bit. I was surprised. Who is Jane?”

  He slashed his hand through the air. “It’s not important. Look, sweetheart, I can’t continue sleeping with you. I can’t trust myself not to . . . well, take advantage of you. You were frightened, weren’t you?”

  Of course she’d been frightened! What could one expect? But he hadn’t been trying to make love to her; it had been another woman he was dreaming about. She closed her eyes against the awful hurt. She turned her head away from him. She had to know, even though it hurt so much. “Who is Jane? Who is this woman you were dreaming about?”

  How could he tell her that in a dream he could act out what he wanted, that his immense desire for her, to be justified even in the recesses of his mind, had to transfer itself to another woman, a woman he wouldn’t hurt, a woman he knew wanted him?

  His head was aching abominably, and he needed to clear his mind. He rose and began to dress. He knew Jules was watching him, he could feel her eyes on him, but he said nothing. All his concentration was on escaping, both from her and her question and from himself and his repehensible behavior.

  He sat down in the single chair and pulled on his boots. “I’m going out for a while, on deck.” He was out the door and gone before she could gather two words together.

  She didn’t cry. She didn’t do anything, save lie there looking up at the darkened ceiling of the cabin. He didn’t return by the time she fell asleep, the sun rising brightly in the morning sky.

  Jules saw him immediately when she came into the dining room late that morning. He’d returned to bathe and change while she’d still slept, she realized from the wreckage in the cabin. He was avoiding her.

  Who was Jane?

  She drank a cup of coffee and nibbled on a slice of bread and butter. He made no move to separate himself from his cohorts and come to her.

  Saint was aware of her the moment she walked into the dining room. She looked a bit pale and tired. He himself felt like the proverbial piece of cow dung, but he’d refused to dose himself to ease the hangover. God, he deserved every shard of pain that sliced through his damned head. This can’t continue, he thought sometime later, so weary of pretending to listen to his fellow passengers that he couldn’t bear it. He rose finally and managed to escape. He made his way to their cabin. She wasn’t there.

  With a lagging step he went on deck, finding her seated beneath the mainsail on a pile of coiled rope.

  “Jules,” he said, greeting her.

  She looked up at him but only nodded.

  He ran his fingers through his windblown hair. “Look,” he said abruptly, “I’ve come to . . .”

  “To apologize?” she supplied when he faltered. “You have already apologized. It isn’t necessary for you to do so again.”

  “Perhaps ‘explain’ is the more apt word.”

  “Is Jane your mistress?”

  He said sharply, “I told you I don’t have a mistress.”

  “I don’t know any other word for it. You make love to her, don’t you? You care for her.”

  “Yes and yes, but it’s not the same thing.”

  “Does she live in San Francisco?” Is she there now, waiting for you to come back?

  She was speaking so calmly, with far less enthusiasm than she used discussing the dolphins they’d seen yesterday.

  “Yes,” he said, frustrated, “she does. She is a very nice person, Jules.”

  “Why didn’t you marry her?”

  “Because I don’t love her, dammit!”

  You don’t love me either. “I see,” she said aloud. “A pity you didn’t rescue her. Then perhaps you would have—married her, that is.”

  “I did rescue her, but not in the same way.”

  She arched a questioning brow, saying nothing.

  He eased down beside her on the coil of rope. The mailsail flapped overhead and the wind whipped through his hair. The smell of salt permeated everything. He wanted to tell Jules to get into the shade, for her fair complexion was turning a distinct red, but he didn’t. “Her name is Jane Branigan, and she’s a widow with two boys. Her husband died in one of the gold camps and I simply helped her to get started on her own. She owns a seamstress shop and is doing well now.”

  “Does she know about me?”
r />   “She knows that I was taking you back to Maui.”

  Jules closed her eyes, fighting against the burdensome pain. He’d more than likely made love to Jane Branigan while she, Jules, was staying in his house.

  “She will be . . . upset?”

  “I don’t know. We are good friends, Jules.”

  Will you still go to her when we arrive in San Francisco? Will you make love to her? . . . Where’s your pride, you stupid twit! She raised her chin. “Perhaps I shall have some good friends who are men.”

  “Perhaps you will,” he said in a light voice.

  “Perhaps I shall even dream about them and call out their names and not yours.”

  He sucked in his breath. You are twenty-nine years old, you stupid bastard. Have a little sense and wit. She’s lashing out because you frightened her, then called out another woman’s name.

  “Jules,” he said slowly, “I am truly sorry for what happened. It is difficult for a man to be very close to a woman and not . . . well, respond to her. It is also very common for a man to dream about sexual things so vividly that they almost become real. Women do it too.”

  “I don’t.”

  You haven’t because you don’t know what to dream about! “Perhaps someday you will understand what I mean. In any case, it won’t happen again, I swear it to you.”

  Jules wished at that moment that he hadn’t awakened, that she hadn’t cried out. It would have been over with, and she felt now that she could deal with any fear better than this. She said, “When we are home, you will continue to see this Jane?”

  He hadn’t thought about it. It was the kind of thing that shouldn’t happen. A man married, his wife a virgin, and he so damned randy . . . She was so beautiful, his Jules, so bright and vivid, and so very vulnerable. He would simply have to become a monk. He had no choice in the matter. A saint who was also a monk. He supposed it fit.

  “No,” he said finally. “I will see her, of course, as a friend, but I won’t have sexual relations with her again. Marriage, for me, means fidelity.”

  “Fidelity seems to have no bearing on anything,” Jules said, and quickly rose, beating down her skirts as the ocean breeze swirled around her.

  “Just what is that supposed to mean?”

  She ignored his question, merely shrugging. “I must fetch my bonnet.”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice showing his weariness. “Yes, you should. You’re becoming quite red.”

  14

  San Francisco

  “Now, Molly, you’re an old hand at this. Breathe slowly, light shallow breaths. That’s it.” Saint gently wiped Molly Tyson’s sweating brow with a cool damp cloth.

  “I was so scared you wouldn’t be here,” Molly said as a contraction eased. “I heard you’d gone off to those Hawaiian Islands.”

  “Yes, I did, but my timing is always exquisite, and so, it appears, is yours. That’s it, Molly . . . no, don’t tense up. Here, squeeze my hand. That’s it.”

  “Damn, it hurts,” Molly gasped. “How could I have forgotten how bad it hurts?”

  “I know. Scream if you want to. I know I would.” Saint winced as she wrung his hand, her back arched up, her body rigid, in a contraction. “All right, Molly, the pains are coming closer now. Let me see how far along this little fellow is.”

  He rose and walked to the basin of hot water that Molly’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, had provided. He washed his hands, then returned to the bed. He wished there were another woman to be with her, but there wasn’t, and he wasn’t about to let twelve-year-old Elizabeth in here. As for Ranger Tyson—the man was useless as a fish flopping on the beach when Molly had a baby. As Saint eased his hand into her, he was grateful that Molly wasn’t embarrassed or a prude. Lord knew, he’d had to deliver babies when the women were suffering as much from embarrassment at his presence as from their labor pains. “Things are coming along just fine,” he said after a moment. “Not much longer, Molly.” He returned to the chair beside her bed and took her hand into his again.

  “In a little while I’ll give you some chloroform. No, don’t tense up. Incidentally, did I tell you that Queen Victoria had chloroform used when she birthed her seventh child last year? If the Queen of England allows it, it’s sure to spread.”

  “I don’t know, Saint, Ranger isn’t so certain, and Father O’Banyon says that the Bible preaches that women should have pain with childbirth and—”

  “To hell with Ranger and Father O’Banyon,” Saint said, interrupting her. “Neither of those blessed gentlemen has to do any of the hurting. I’ve heard that ridiculous argument about women and sorrow until I’m ready to kill. Now, you just think about this new little tyke. You’re lucky you aren’t an Indian wife, Molly. Did I tell you about the Indian tribe—I can’t remember the name—but if a woman in labor wasn’t birthing quickly enough, they tied her to a stake out in a field. Yes, indeed, it’s true.” He grinned at her incredulous look, knowing she was now distracted. “Then, Molly, a brave would ride full tilt toward her, veering away only at the last instant.”

  “Oh God, that’s awful!”

  “Yes, but you can imagine that such a fright would do something. Evidently it worked, or I can’t imagine that they’d continue scaring the woman out of her wits. That’s it, Molly, pant.”

  He administered the chloroform about ten minutes later. The birth of Molly’s third child, a boy, came quickly after that. The chloroform didn’t stop all pain, but it certainly lessened the utter agony a woman felt in the last minutes of labor.

  “You just get your breath, Molly,” Saint said, grinning down at her, “and I’ll take your beautiful baby out to Elizabeth.”

  “Tell Ranger, if he isn’t too drunk, Saint. He wanted another boy.”

  Over an hour later, Saint mounted his horse, Spartan, and rode north back to the city. Ranger Tyson was partner in Hobson’s Stables in San Francisco. Instead of money in payment for his services, Saint had bargained himself free stabling and feed for Spartan for six months.

  Saint breathed in deeply the crisp, fog-filled air. It was near to dawn, and streaks of crimson had started to slash across the horizon. Why, he wondered, rubbing his jaw wearily, did women always tend to start their labor at night? He’d left Jules asleep, at least he hoped she’d been asleep.

  They’d arrived in San Francisco three days before on a foggy, chill afternoon. Jules, used to the balmy weather of the islands, was shivering violently by the time they’d gotten to his house. Lydia Mullens, bless her, had wrapped Jules up and poured hot chocolate down her. He remembered clearly his feeling when he’d stepped into his surgery. It was as if he’d been living out of time. Everything was again as it had been, as it should be, except that he had a shivering wife upstairs. She hadn’t been cold before, he remembered, but then, she’d spent all her time in his house.

  “Damn,” he said aloud with no particular heat, rubbing his hand over Spartan’s satiny black neck.

  Spartan nickered.

  Saint grinned, staring between his horse’s ears. “Well, old boy,” he said to his horse, “life isn’t the way we left it, is it? The question is, what the hell is going to happen now?” Spartan wasn’t obliging enough to nicker again.

  Saint was tired to his bones, but it was a comforting physical weariness that he appreciated. At least he wouldn’t have to endure those damned draining erotic dreams for a while. As for Jane Branigan, she’d behaved with great understanding when he’d visited her the day before. It was almost as if she’d expected it, he realized, thinking back to her words.

  “She isn’t all that much a child then, I gather,” she’d said, pouring him a cup of coffee in her small kitchen.

  “She’s nineteen,” Saint had said. “Not a child, no.” Had he given her the idea that Jules was still in puberty?

  “And I don’t suppose, you being as you are, that we’ll be seeing much of you anymore.”

  “Of course you’ll be seeing me. I’m fond of the boys, Jane. It’s just that—”
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br />   “I know, Saint,” she’d said quietly, “I know. Honor, fidelity, and all that.”

  “I suppose so,” he said. He remembered that dream he’d had aboard ship, and clenched his fists at his sides.

  His thoughts veered again to his young wife. Jules had withdrawn from him after that last damned fracas aboard the Oregon, and he supposed he couldn’t blame her. Lord, how should she have reacted when he’d very nearly forced her and called out another woman’s name? Later, when he’d found Lydia unpacking Jules’s clothes in his bedroom, he hadn’t known what to say. He didn’t want to sleep in the spare room—the damned bed was too short for him.

  And he couldn’t sleep with her. It was simply too much.

  To his surprise and silent relief, Jules had taken the matter out of his hands. He’d been called away to treat a broken hand—the result of a fistfight, of course—and when he returned that evening, he saw that she’d moved all her things down the hall to the spare bedroom.

  He didn’t know what to say to her. Thank you, wife, for not forcing me to sleep with you. It was odd, he thought, frowning slightly. He’d never in his life been so damned obsessed with sex. Sex was just something that went along naturally with everything. I guess not having it makes my mind weird, he concluded, hoping it would go away.

  And there was Jules, smiling, chattering gaily, primarily with Lydia, until his—no, their—housekeeper had left for the night. Then she’d become quiet and withdrawn again.

  He’d settled quickly back into his routine. As for Jules, he wasn’t certain exactly what it was she did when he wasn’t there.

  “Spartan, what about Jameson Wilkes?” he said aloud to his horse. Spartan nickered, but at their entry into the city, and not in response to Saint’s profound question. Already, men were up and about. He returned greetings and continued toward Hobson’s Stables on Market Street.

  “The bastard,” he continued to his horse after a moment, “is bound to discover that Jules is married to me. What the hell will he do?” He won’t believe she’s a virgin anymore. She won’t have any more value to him. “True enough,” he said in response to his silent observation.