That Other Katherine

by Linda Lael Miller

  "It was nice meeting you," she said to the other man, without thinking, and then Gavin was propelling her toward the French doors leading to the main parlor.

  Just over the threshold, he wrenched her angrily up into his arms. "'It was nice meeting you,'" he mimicked. "What kind of asinine remark was that?"

  Katherine rested her head against a hard shoulder and yawned. "Oh," she said, in a tone of weary revelation. "I take it that was the infamous Jeffrey Beecham, with whom I was allegedly indiscreet."

  Gavin took the stairs easily, as though Katherine's voluptuous weight was no strain at all to carry. "Allegedly," he scoffed under his breath. "I found the two of you in bed together, my darling. Remember?"

  Chapter 4

  Gavin's footsteps slowed as he passed the double doors, of the master suite—he had carried Kathy through them many times during happier days—but now he proceeded down the hall without hesitation.

  Reaching the entrance of Katherine's chamber, originally meant to be a dressing room, he opened the door and crossed the threshold.

  Maria, who had been minding the sleeping baby, rose from her chair and left.

  Katherine yawned and stretched, lush and kittenlike, when he laid her gently on the bed. Gavin's loins tightened in response. He couldn't have made love to her, of course; only a brute would have expected such accommodation so soon after childbirth. But the knowledge didn't stop him from wanting her, God help him, and neither did the mental image of her lying naked in Jeffrey Beecham's arms that day months before.

  Gavin closed his eyes, remembering. Regretting.

  He'd gotten drunk, for the first and last time in his life, after finding his wife and her lover in the guest house. And while he hadn't actually raped Kathy in their bedroom that night, he'd used her roughly. The fact that his wife had mistaken his rage for passion and responded wholeheartedly did not absolve him.

  Now, stretched out on the bed to which he'd banished her, Katherine looked too angelic, too innocent to betray a husband's love. She favored him with a distracted little smile, her eyelids fluttered closed, and then she was asleep.

  Gavin was unable to maintain his stern expression, now that she wasn't looking. He smiled as he gently removed her satin slippers and covered her tenderly with the lightweight wool blanket he found draped over the back of a chair.

  She stirred beneath the coverlet, and Gavin felt his heart twist painfully. Some ancient instinct whispered that she was not the same woman he'd known, but somehow drastically changed. He was a physician, however, a man of science, and he couldn't give credence to anything quite so mystical.

  He trusted facts, not feelings. It was a lesson he'd learned the hard way.

  He resisted an urge to brush a tendril of auburn hair back from Katherine's forehead and turned to leave the room. Then, unable to help himself, he paused beside the baby's cradle, gazing down at the little boy he'd named Christopher that very day.

  Gavin could no longer deny, even to himself, that this child was his own; the resemblance was too marked to be discounted.

  After glancing in Katherine's direction to make certain she was truly sleeping, he crouched beside the cradle and gently touched Christopher's tiny ear.

  "My son," he said, his voice hardly more than a hoarse whisper. Then he rose and walked from the room, closing the door behind him.

  In the face of emotional confusion, Gavin generally took refuge in routine. He would change clothes, he decided, then get his medical bag, call for the carriage, and make his rounds.

  His work at the hospital would take care of the rest of the night, and tomorrow could look after itself.

  The next morning Katherine awakened to a room flooded with sunlight. By the time Maria arrived with a pitcher of hot water, she had already changed Christopher and fed him, and mother and child were sitting in a rocker by the windows, admiring the view of the garden.

  "You shouldn't be out of bed, Mrs. Winslow," Maria said, with her usual lack of inflection.

  "Nonsense," Katherine responded. "It's not as though I've had major surgery, after all." She raised Christopher and kissed his forehead. "Giving birth is a natural thing, and the sooner I'm up and around, the better."

  Maria set the pitcher on the washstand and laid out a damask washcloth, a fluffy towel, and a bar of soap so fragrant that Katherine could smell its perfume from where she sat. "Whatever you say, Mrs. Winslow," she parroted. "I'll bring up your tea while you're washing, and Miss Marianne really thinks you should have breakfast. Shall I take the baby?"

  Katherine surrendered her son, but reluctantly, and Maria put him in the cradle. "Tea would be wonderful, but I'll have my breakfast in the kitchen or the dining room or wherever everyone else eats. I'm sick to death of being locked away in this room." She poured some of the water Maria had brought into the waiting crockery basin and reached for the soap and cloth. "Tell me, Maria, how is it that you speak the way you do?"

  Maria paused at the door. "You mean, why don't I sound like an Indian?"

  Katherine blushed. She hadn't meant her question to sound condescending, but evidently it had. "Yes," she admitted. "That's what I was wondering."

  For the first time in their acquaintance, Maria smiled. "My stepmother was white, and she was a schoolteacher until she married my father. She taught me 'Boston English,' but I have not forgotten the tongue of my people. It is very precious to me."

  "Unfortunately," Katherine said with a thoughtlessness she had not intended, "the Indian way of life will all but disappear in the coming years." When she glanced in the wall mirror and saw Maria's stricken expression, she knew she had erred.

  Maria lowered her head for a moment, but when she looked at Katherine again there was a proud, defiant light in her eyes. "Indian ways will live forever, in the safety of our hearts."

  Katherine rinsed away the soap and dried her face and hands thoroughly on the towel provided, giving herself time to think. Finally she turned and faced the hired girl. "Yes," she said. "Maybe that's the only hope any of us have for our traditions—the memories of our children."

  Maria swallowed visibly, and she glanced toward Christopher and nodded. "The old ways and stories are too valuable to be forgotten. They are a part of who we are."

  "Yes," Katherine answered without hesitation. "I'm going to write down every single thing I can remember." Except for giving birth to Christopher, she hadn't done anything worthwhile since she'd crash-landed in the nineteenth century. Now, at least, she could make some kind of record of her experience. Maybe someone, someday, would believe her.

  There was a long silence while Maria hovered in the doorway, silent, not quite able to meet Katherine's gaze. Finally she said, "My stepmother was going to help me write out the old legends, but we always thought we had plenty of time. Two years ago she caught the cholera and died."

  "I'm sorry," Katherine said. She knew what it was to lose a mother. Memories filled her mind: waxed floors of chipped linoleum, fresh-baked cookies filling the house with the wonderful aromas of chocolate and sugar and butter, a Christmas tree bedecked with homemade ornaments and shining colored lights, the sound of scales being plunked out on the piano by some earnest student.

  Katherine had lost all those things, and much more, when Julia Hollis succumbed to cancer, and the grief had followed her even into another woman's life.

  "I will bring your tea," Maria replied, closing the door.

  Katherine began to pace the length of the hearth, feeling wildly restless. She still remembered only a few details of her other existence, but she knew she'd been an active, energetic person, committed to regular exercise.

  "This Victorian bird-in-a-gilded-cage number is not me," she confided to the baby, who gave a tiny little sigh in response.

  She stopped and looked at her image in the elegant mirror above the small brick fireplace. Although she'd had some time to accept her situation, if not understand it, it still astonished her to see a stranger's face reflected back from the glass.

&
nbsp; Deciding she needed to take some action, however small or even ill-advised, Katherine eyed the inner door that led to Gavin's room. If she was going to go out and explore her surroundings, she would certainly need clothes, and they were evidently stored in that closet Marianne had entered the day before.

  Katherine tried the knob cautiously, all the while expecting a shout of angry warning from Gavin. The door was locked, as before.

  A glance at the clock on the mantelpiece revealed that it was well after nine a.m. Surely a dedicated doctor like Gavin had long since left for the hospital or for an office somewhere.

  Securing the belt of her robe, Katherine squared her shoulders, marched out into the hall, and boldly turned the brass handle on one of the towering oak doors leading into the master suite.

  She wasn't doing anything wrong, she insisted to herself, zeroing in on the closet without so much as a glance toward the massive four-poster. Ever since she'd seen the bed the day before, she'd been entertaining some very disturbing thoughts and images. In short, she'd pictured herself lying naked on it, surrendering to Gavin, taking him inside her.

  Entering the huge closet, she found an array of dresses she could not even have imagined. There were silks and organdies, chiffons and cottons, velvets and laces. The sumptuous beauty of the gowns made her breath catch, and she caught an inner glimpse, in her mind's eye, of a little girl playing dress-up, far off in another century, another universe.

  Carefully, she took down a hunter-green dress with a short jacket. The fabric was a very lightweight wool, and both garments were trimmed in black silk ribbon.

  She was so caught up in the spectacular magic of that closet that all the breath fled her lungs when she turned to leave and collided with a rock-hard chest.

  Gavin was standing in the doorway in riding breeches and no shirt, his arms folded. Even with his dark hair rumpled and his beard growing in, he looked entirely too good to be true.

  "Good morning," he drawled, and Katherine could see that her disconcertion pleased him.

  Color surged into her face. Deciding that the best defense was an offense, she challenged, "What kind of doctor is still lying around in bed at this hour?"

  He chuckled, and while the sound wasn't exactly mean, it grated against Katherine's already jumbled nerves. "The kind who didn't get home from the hospital until five-thirty this morning."

  Katherine swallowed, wishing he would let her pass. "If you'll excuse me…"

  Gavin caught her chin in one hand and lifted, and his eyes were somber all of a sudden as he studied her face. "Where are you planning to go?"

  "Out," she responded. "If I don't get some fresh air and sunshine, I'll lose my mind."

  His dark brows drew together for a moment. "Since when do you enjoy the outdoors, Kathy?" he asked. Skepticism stole into his features. "Ah. Yes. You're meeting Beecham somewhere."

  The insult quivered in Katherine's spirit like a spear. "No."

  His thumb caressed her cheek, and the light in his gray eyes was a dangerous one, like a night fire flickering in an enemy camp. He touched her mouth then, as if to prepare it for conquering.

  A moment later, with a raw sound low in his throat, Gavin kissed her. The action sent a sensation of delicious violence tumbling through her, and when he pulled her closer it was as though she'd struck a brick wall at high speed.

  She could not have imagined more powerful feelings than those, but when Gavin thrust his tongue into her mouth, she was confronted with a whole new level of excitement. Her knees went weak, her heart began to beat so rapidly that she feared it would explode, and there was an achy, melting stir in the center of her womanhood. When Gavin lifted a hand to her breast and caressed her, still consuming her mouth, she was struck with a sweet and cataclysmic seizure of a kind she'd never experienced before.

  She whimpered, her body convulsing softly against his, and when Gavin suddenly ended the kiss, she stared up at him in bewilderment.

  "Never again, Kathy," he said tersely. "Never again."

  Katherine bent to pick up the dress which had dropped to the floor between them, not wanting him to see the hurt and embarrassment on her face. She might not have understood exactly what he was talking about, but she knew rejection when she encountered it.

  Shakily, she left the room, her head held high. Gavin didn't need to know that it took all her pride to keep from defending herself to him, and all her courage to take the dress with her when she left.

  One thing was clear. She could do nothing to change what had happened to her; she had a feeling there was no going back to that time and place beyond the crystal bridge.

  That left the here and now to work with, and she meant to push up her sleeves and shape a life for herself.

  With or without Dr. Gavin Winslow.

  Chapter 5

  Katherine walked around the beautifully maintained yard and gardens, exhilarated by the fresh spring air and bright sunshine. When she grew tired, she sat on the edge of the marble fountain, drew a deep, delicious breath, and closed her eyes.

  The light, unexpected kiss made her open them again, wide.

  Jeffrey smiled down at her. "Hello, Kathy," he said in a throaty voice.

  If Katherine could have wished the man into a parallel universe, she would have done it. She wasn't at all surprised to look up at the second-floor windows of the mansion and catch a glimpse of Gavin as he turned away.

  Jeffrey sat down beside her and took her hand; she wrenched free, feeling miserable.

  "Your timing could not have been worse!" she hissed, bolting to her feet and smoothing her skirts.

  Jeffrey's gaze had followed hers to the row of windows in the master bedroom. "I suppose the good doctor is on his way down to bloody my nose even as we speak."

  "I wouldn't blame him if he did," she replied, tightening the black grosgrain ribbons that held her hunter-green bonnet in place. She drew in another deep breath, this time for courage, and then launched into her announcement. "I don't know what happened between the two of us," she said, and blushed as Jeffrey arched one eyebrow and smiled slightly. "All right, I do know. But I want to forget it all. I—I love my husband."

  Jeffrey's amused expression turned stormy. He straightened his silk cravat and rose to look down at Katherine's face. "You made a promise to me. You vowed that we would leave for San Francisco, just the two of us, as soon as you'd regained your strength."

  Katherine frowned. "Just the two of us? Surely I never meant to leave the baby…"

  A crimson flush moved up Jeffrey's neck. "We agreed that the child would be better off here, with Dr. Winslow and his sister. Katherine, what's come over you? You're not the same woman I knew!"

  She sank back onto the marble seat, dazed. She liked having this ripe and womanly body, and she loved Christopher and… yes, heaven help her, Gavin… but the more she found out about the original Mrs. Winslow, the more quiet contempt she felt. Not only had the other Katherine betrayed her husband, she had actually planned to abandon her own baby.

  Katherine's high spirits were deflated. Earlier she'd actually dared to believe it was possible to win Gavin's forgiveness, if not his love. Now the whole situation seemed more hopeless than ever.

  "I don't want to see you again, Jeffrey," she said softly but firmly. "Not ever."

  Jeffrey glared at her for a long moment, then turned and stormed away. The metal gate made a loud clatter behind him.

  The next sound Katherine heard was slow, derisive applause.

  She turned to see Gavin standing on the pathway leading to the French doors. He looked as handsome as ever in his tan breeches, linen shirt, and tailored tweed jacket, and every bit as stubborn.

  "Stop it," she snapped. "I'm tired of your damnable mockery, Gavin Winslow."

  "An excellent performance—the young matron bidding farewell to her lover. You belong in the theater."

  Katherine stamped one foot. "Stop being such a jerk and give me a little credit, will you? I meant what I said to Jeffrey�
��Mr. Beecham. I never want to see him again!"

  "What's a jerk?" Gavin asked, with wary curiosity.

  Katherine laughed, but the sound was bitter and filled with despair. "Stupid and stubborn would pretty much cover it," she said.

  For a long, long moment, Gavin just looked at her, his expression unreadable. There might have been tenderness in his pewter eyes, but there were anger and distrust, too. "I think you'd better go inside," he finally decreed.

  She didn't bother to argue; she was suddenly too tired, and the events of the morning had left her feeling a little loosely wrapped. She started toward the house, her eyes averted, and when she passed Gavin he stopped her, catching hold of her arm.

  "I won't forgive a second mistake, Katherine," he said.

  She did not look at him. "You haven't forgiven the first one," she pointed out.

  In her room, a fresh nightgown and wrapper awaited, and a maid had put clean sheets on the bed.

  Katherine changed clothes, then sat in the rocking chair to nurse Christopher, who seemed to have a keener appetite with every passing day. When he'd gone back to sleep some minutes later, with that guileless propensity of newborns, Katherine crawled into bed, stretched out on the crisp bed linens, and dozed off herself.

  When she awakened several hours later, the floors and corners of the room were shadowed with twilight, and there was a covered tray of food waiting on the bedside table. Maria was sitting in the rocking chair, nursing Christopher.

  Katherine sat up with a sigh and moved the tray onto her lap. Like Christopher, she was ravenous. "Is your baby a boy or a girl?" she asked.

  Maria's expression was remote. "A boy."

  The dinner tray held a delectable assortment of fare, including a chicken pie and a dish of stewed pears. "I'd like to see him. What's his name?"

  Maria gazed down at Christopher as she spoke. "The tribal elders will give my son a name, when the time comes." She lifted deep brown eyes to Katherine's face.