“Amanda . . . I’ve got a weekend off coming up. Will you be free? I’d like to see you.”
“That would be wonderful, Paul.”
After she replaced the receiver, she sat looking at the telephone, trying to sort out what lay behind Paul’s call. Could it be possible that Paul Godwin was interested in her?
She dressed carefully, for Paul had said he wanted to take her out to eat. She wore the same blue serge suit but softened it with a pale-blue frothy blouse she purchased out of her first wages as an attorney. And rather than knotting her hair, she let it hang sleekly, framing her face in a very feminine style.
When the doorbell rang, her stomach dropped in nervousness. She opened the door. Paul stood there, tall and striking, with that dignified manner he had about him. She held out both hands to clasp his. “Paul,” she said warmly. He had always been kind to her.
He took her hands and pulled her to him, kissing first her forehead, then her lips, softly, gently. The kiss left her stunned. Paul wasn’t a big brother. He was a man. He put her from him. “You’re beautiful, Amanda.”
She smiled, suddenly shy.
“Once, Nick told me that in you was refined the best of the American and Oriental characteristics – the tremendous combination of Western drive and daring and Eastern spirituality.”
Instantly, she was suspicious of what Nick’s motives had been. “I don’t want to hear about me. It’s not often a commoner gets to talk with someone of the hierarchy. I want to hear what Eleanor wears to bed and if FDR truly has a mistress, and—”
“Good grief, you really don’t think I know what Eleanor wears to bed?” Paul laughed.
Their banter set the mood to cover what they both were thinking about and continued after they got in the car Paul had rented. It was only after they passed the city-limit signs and left the lights behind them that she realized they were not going to a restaurant—at least not one in Tucson. “Where are we eating?” she asked Paul.
The smile lines about his lips eased as he sobered. “I suppose the President would say I hedged on you, Amanda. I am taking you out to eat. But not to a public restaurant. I know how you feel about the Stronghold, so I thought it would be the perfect place to eat tonight.”
He turned off the main highway, and the final thirty-minute stretch of the trip through the Empire foothills was made in pleasant conversation. But beneath the lightness of her words her heart thumped in anticipation.
She was going home!
The lights from the Stronghold’s many windows blazed like beacons against the darkness of the night. A table was already set with candlelight. The same old Mexican retainer stood waiting at the dining-room door to serve them. Paul pulled out a chair at the long table and seated himself across from her. She reached out to touch his hand. “Nothing could have been better,” she whispered, affected by his thoughtfulness.
“And nothing could be better for my aging male ego than to look across the table and see a beautiful, warm, and intelligent woman whom I care for very much. No, more than that, a woman whom I love. Does it shock you for me to admit it, Amanda?” His long, slender fingers gripped hers with a strength that surprised her. “Shall I take you in my arms as the impetuous man I once was and tell you I've been half in love with you since you were a child—when those large green eyes of yours challenged both Nick and myself?”
Slowly she shook her head. “No, I’ve had enough of that, Paul.” She looked down at the slender, capable fingers that interlaced her own. She knew they would be tender, patient, and loving with her . . . never demanding, never brutal.
“And how do you feel—how do you feel about marrying a man twenty-two years your senior? I feel positively selfish and just a little senile asking you to marry me, Amanda, but I really think I could make you happy. I know I’m too old to generate the wild passion that only the youth can, but I can love you. Let me love you, Amanda. Let me make you happy. Let me marry you.”
He released her fingers and picked up the wineglass beside his plate. “You must believe I’d try to make you happy, dear. You haven’t had much happiness in your brief life. Say you’ll give me the chance.”
The world reeled about her as if she were on a merry-go-round. Wordlessly she picked up her own glass and touched the crystal rim to his. As much as she had wanted Cristo Rey, no, lusted after it, it had never actually occurred to her that she would ever have it. There had lived in her only the madness for revenge. But now Paul was offering her not only Cristo Rey but an end to the revenge that had eaten at her soul.
CHAPTER 60
Within the week, stories of Paul Godwin’s engagement to Amanda were plastered over the front pages of newspapers across the nation, accompanied by separate photos of Paul and her. She shuddered when she recognized her photo as one taken at the Poston War Relocation Camp.
It made a fabulous story—“Millionaire Diplomat to Wed War Camp Cinderella.” She feared the photos taken of Nick and her at Santa Anita would crop up, but they never did, and she could only guess that Paul, the wise politician, saw to it they did not. There was only a short paragraph in the Arizona Daily Star about her release from the Poston War Camp—“through the efforts of the Godwin family."
Paul could not get free for the wedding until May, another two months away, but he insisted that she take the time to shop for her trousseau. He was even arranging to have a refugee couturiére trained at one of the well-known French houses design her wedding dress. “No haute couture could do justice to your golden-skinned beauty,” he told her, taking her in his arms before he boarded his private coach on the train.
His mouth closed over hers in a kiss that began softly but increased in its urgency. She could feel the heat emanating from him. There was nothing soft about the body that she was pressed against . . . a slender, sinewy body, she knew, that would take her slowly, patiently, along the route to love’s passion.
Her previously quiet life changed after Paul’s departure. People were constantly streaming into her office to congratulate her, total strangers—some of whom became her clients. She was a celebrity now. Occasionally some newspaper photographer snapped her picture as she left the courthouse or entered City Hall. And once an interviewer for “Jimmie Fidler’s Hollywood Gossip” shoved his shiny wagon-wheel microphone before her face as she left the university’s law library.
Constantly in the news as she was, the story of Paul Godwin’s long-distance courtship of her appeared in the New York Daily Mirror. She was forced to purchase a new wardrobe—tailored dresses, finely cut business suits, and a few casual clothes that breathed of elegance. She even splurged and bought a John-Frederic chapeau for sixty dollars; but then, with her increased clientele she could afford to appear better dressed.
Paul called her every day, and she looked forward to hearing his voice, to talking about her cases or listening to him describe the intricacies of the political debates waged at Washington's social gatherings. “The nation’s policies are formulated there— and in the bedrooms, Mandy, not in the Senate chambers or the Oval Room.”
“As long as you stay out of the bedrooms,” she teased, “I don’t care how you formulate our national policies.”
One day she looked up from her desk to see Larry and Kathy coming through the door. “I don’t believe it!" she said, rising.
“And we didn’t believe it," Kathy said. She hugged Amanda, then stepped back, saying, "My husband, Larry!”
Larry smiled sheepishly. “The girl didn't give up on me.”
“You two married? How marvelous!”
“And how marvelous the things we hear about you,” Kathy said. “Not only did you manage to get your law degree, which I gave up on, but we've been reading everywhere about your engagement to Paul Godwin.”
“Who would ever have thought . . ." Larry began and broke off with a smile. "How about going out to lunch with us?”
Amanda knew he had been about to mention Nick’s name and thought better of it. “I'd love to! Living
and working in the same place makes a wreck out of you.”
In the weeks that followed, Kathy, bored being a housewife, stopped by quite often for lunch or invited Amanda for dinner on the weekend. Between Amanda’s expanding professional career and the new demands on her social life as Paul’s fiancée, her time was fully occupied, which was how she wanted it. She should have been happy, but there came the visit from Nick to change her euphoria.
It was nearing eight o’clock one evening, and she had just finished washing her hair in the sink. She only had time to slide her panty-clad body into a robe before she hurried through the darkened front of the building to answer the door. “Mind if I come in?” Nick asked and walked on past her before she could reply.
She shut the door and turned to face him, her arms crossed. “Well?” she demanded, hoping that her voice did not betray her inner trembling.
“Just wanted to congratulate you, Mandy. You’re a smooth lady. Paul called earlier this week to get my blessing.”
“I can well imagine what you told him!”
“Actually I told him nothing. If he doesn’t already know the kind of woman he’s marrying, he soon will. Scheming bitches, they call women like you.”
Her hand slashed upward, and he anticipated it, catching her wrist in a brutal grip. A white-hot current ignited the chemistry that had always been between them. “Temper!” he growled, pulling her against him. Then she smelled the liquor that warmed his breath.
“What’s wrong with what I’m doing?” she demanded. “I can make Paul happy. And he loves me.”
“And in return you can have the Stronghold. What a marriage of convenience! Just like the Old World.”
“Don’t you dare judge me, Nick Godwin. You arranged your own marriage of convenience for that damned career of yours. Your wife and your mistress came second!”
He shoved her from him and pulled out his case of cigarettes. The match he struck briefly illuminated the darkened office and his strong, homely face. "That was the problem, Mandy,” he said, exhaling. “I couldn’t make you come second no matter how hard I tried. Your image kept crowding in on my thoughts, demanding of me what I had no right to give! Even after Paul told me he was going to marry you, I kept waiting, kept hoping that you would change your mind . . . that I was wrong about you. That you couldn’t be bought.”
“Get out!” she said. “Get out!”
She promised herself she would not let his visit interfere with her future happiness. She was to be wedded to a man she dearly cared about. The fact that she was to gain the Stronghold would only make her marriage that much happier.
The remaining weeks before the marriage whirled by with the last-minute tasks. Paul called two or three times a day now or sent telegrams the week he was in London. Every Friday a delivery boy arrived at her office with a vase of roses or chrysanthemums or maybe an orchid corsage, so that the tiny place looked like a greenhouse. She spent many hours on the telephone with Paul’s secretary in Washington coordinating the wedding arrangements. Then there were the fittings of the wedding dress, the caterers to be hired, the invitations to be sent.
Kathy pitched in and helped, seeming to enjoy the excitement of the demanding hours of work. But Amanda dragged to bed each night. Still, she could not sleep. And often she felt ill. She could not eat, though her stomach churned with hunger.
Then as the last days of April slipped into May, she made an appointment—an appointment she dreaded keeping. She sat in the doctor’s office, waiting. It could not be possible, she thought. Just when she had finally achieved what she wanted from life. But the doctor confirmed her fear.
She was pregnant with Nick’s child.
“I take it you are not pleased with the news, Mrs. Willis?” the doctor asked, as he set aside his rubber gloves.
It had been Kathy’s idea to use her married name. For once her voluble friend closed her mouth and did not ask who the father was when Amanda revealed her fear that she was pregnant.
“No,” Amanda answered woodenly now. “I’m—I’m not ready for a child yet.”
The doctor sighed. “Too often that happens these days. The woman’s boyfriend comes home—a soldier on leave—and returns to the war front, leaving his girl with the burden to bear . . . no pun intended.”
His graying brows lowered over the peering eyes. “In situations such as these I can sometimes arrange for . . . the removal of the fetus. Purely a minor surgical process which takes place in my office. Expensive, you understand, due to extenuating circumstances. But if you find that you cannot go through with this pregnancy, I can make the necessary arrangements.”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“Well, take your time, my dear. This is something no woman should be pushed into. You still have two weeks before you go into the danger zone. After three months I just won’t risk the woman’s life or my reputation in such an operation.”
“No . . . no, please. Go ahead and make the arrangements. I’ll need to rearrange my schedule, but I can be ready.”
Where before her feet had dragged to the doctor’s office, she practically ran out. She was in a hurry to get it over with. She was in a hurry to get married. Tuesday, the day of the operation, came at last. She could not get to the doctor’s office soon enough. Quickly, quickly, her brain demanded. Nothing must prevent the wedding from taking place.
Kathy sat in the outer office with her while she waited for the nurse to announce her name. Around her sat half a dozen or so obviously pregnant young women, their expressions nigh beatific as their hands occasionally and almost surreptitiously gently touched their beach-ball stomachs. For one unguarded moment Amanda's thoughts wistfully drifted as she imagined the child inside her—a daughter, a son; the babe nuzzling against her breast; later those tiny dimpled hands latched onto her fingers as the tot balanced precariously on two small feet.
Amanda closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of the pregnant mothers’ blissful faces, and shutting out the tears that threatened to spill. She forced the image of the Stronghold, its impregnable walls and splendid castle rooms, to the front of her mind. The Stronghold. After almost a hundred years it would be returned to the rightful heirs. It was justice! It was retribution! It was what the Ghost Lady would have wanted, wasn’t it?
The nurse called her into a sterile anteroom, a terribly cold place it seemed, where she was told to remove her clothing. She felt as if she were in a butcher’s locker room as she slid into the backless gown. Another nurse came for her, the woman’s face an impassive mask, and led her through a back door that led to what appeared to be just another examination room, though there were many more gleaming instruments spread across its counter and the overhead lights were brighter—glaring, illuminating globes that seemed to leave her no privacy, no decency.
“If you’ll just lie up here on the table.” The nurse began to maneuver the valves of the oxygen tank. “Now the doctor will be in shortly to give you a last examination before we begin the . . . procedure,” she explained in a brittlely cheerful voice. “If you’ll inhale a few whiffs of the oxygen, it’ll make you lightheaded, like a couple of good stiff drinks, so that the ether won’t make you so . . . uncomfortable. Later, if you need it, you’ll be given more.”
When the mask descended, all Amanda could think of was the thing within her inhaling the nauseous ether as she did. Soon she would be rid of its presence. It was all that stood between her and the Stronghold. It would be Nick’s child! Nick had always stood between her and the Stronghold. Nick's child.
A child.
She began to twist and shove at the cup that covered her nose and mouth. “The child!” it seemed she screamed, though it could not have been more than a faint cry through the mask’s cup. She kicked and flailed her arms before the cup was mercifully lifted from her face and she fainted.
When next she awoke, Kathy was hovering over her. “Am I . . . did the doctor . . .”
Kathy shook her head, and her tight sausage curls bobbled. Am
anda was afraid to hear her answer. “It seems you wanted the baby, and the doctor was afraid to go ahead for fear of a lawsuit.”
“Thank God," she breathed.
“Did you want the baby?” Kathy asked, leaning over her in puzzlement.
She managed a weak smile. “I suppose so. Yes, yes, I do, Kathy.”
Her friend shook her head in wonderment. “The baby’s not Paul’s, is it?”
“No."
“You know what this baby’ll do to his career—and yours? I don’t have to tell you, do I? You sure you don’t want to reconsider?”
“No. I’m not going through with the abortion, Kathy. And I’m not going through with the marriage.”
Her penciled brows knitted. “I don’t understand, hon. You realize what you’re giving up—the Stronghold and all? A person’d have to be a fool to give up marriage to a famous man like Paul Godwin and all that money!”
She groaned. “And I’m the biggest of fools.”
CHAPTER 61
“Go on to lunch without me, Kathy.”
“You’re not eating?” her friend asked. “The doctor would throw a tizzy, if he knew.”
Amanda smiled. “But he doesn’t, does he?”
“You’re not upset, are you—over that photo of Paul and that Washington party hostess, what’s her name?”
She sighed. “No, I’m truly not. It’s just that I always seem to be sleepier these days, and it takes me longer to get everything done. Bring me back a sandwich, will you?”
Kathy hesitated at the door. “You know, when Nick Godwin came by our house for Trouble earlier this year, I thought he might be the one, but I seem to be wrong about both the Godwin brothers.”
Amanda managed a smile. “If you see any good-looking soldiers on leave, grab one for me. The baby needs a father.”
Kathy laughed and left. Amanda sighed. She didn’t know why she pushed herself like she did. There really weren’t that many clients pounding at her door, though she had enough to keep her reasonably occupied. When word of her broken engagement reached the newspapers, a great many of her “social clients” dropped off like flies in winter’s first freeze. And she was certain that as word spread of her pregnancy, she would lose many more clients, regardless of how successful she had been in the courtroom. At five months pregnant, her growing abdomen was almost impossible to hide, especially on her otherwise slender figure. And the tent dresses she wore weren’t really that becoming to a professional woman.
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