That Other Katherine
Page 7
As she sat in the soothing silence of that place, a tear slipped down her cheek. Every day her old existence in modern-day Seattle seemed farther and farther away, more and more like a fantastic story she'd read somewhere. This life, here and now, was real and vital, the one she truly wanted to live, and yet the emotional distance between her and Gavin seemed too vast to bridge. They were in accord only when they were making love, and that simply wasn't enough.
Chapter 10
Gavin did return to the island house for dinner that night. He made love to Katherine later, in the privacy of their room, just as he'd promised to do, and even though her ego demanded it, she hadn't the strength to resist.
Gavin transported her, taking her to new levels of pleasure with every conquering, swallowing her cries of stunned ecstasy so that the whole household wouldn't know what was going on. Between bouts of passion, he kissed and caressed Katherine back to a state of such fevered wanting that she murmured in frantic distraction until he satisfied her.
When Christopher cried, Gavin got up, lit a lamp, and changed the infant, then brought him to bed and watched, propped up on one elbow, while Katherine nursed their son. Never, in this life or the other, had she ever treasured the miraculous secrets of her womanhood as she did then.
She put Christopher back into his cradle when he was full and sleepy again, and stood watching him in quiet awe for a long time. Her body was naked, her wild auburn hair tumbling down her back.
"Katherine."
She turned and watched as Gavin tossed back the tangled sheets on her side of the bed. Incredibly, he wanted her again.
She went to her husband without hesitation.
She was different. The stubborn thought nagged at Gavin as he stood at the railing of the boat as it chugged across the water toward Seattle. Before the great change, which seemed to have come with Christopher's birth, Kathy had avoided his lovemaking. She'd said he was too big, too fierce, too insatiable.
Yet the night before, she'd bucked beneath him like a mare in springtime, flinging back her head so that the muscles in her neck corded when she climaxed. He'd kissed her to stifle the cries that vibrated from the depths of her moist little belly and burst from her throat to batter against his. Once, while taking her in the way that went back to earliest man, he'd muzzled her with his hand. She'd taken one of his fingers into her mouth, and Gavin had closed his eyes and delved deep, and there had been no one to muffle his moan of triumphant surrender.
Gavin sighed. According to Mrs. Hawkins, Katherine regularly visited the chapel in the woods behind the house, and that was another mystery. The Kathy he knew had recognized no deity other than her own self.
The way Marianne told it, Katherine would spend hours on the sunporch with Maria, laboriously recording "stories." That was another thing that baffled Gavin; the woman he'd married wouldn't have drawn up a laundry list, let alone penned reams of prose.
He shoved a hand through his hair. Katherine wanted him to believe she'd changed, he concluded. It was all just an elaborate scheme to regain his trust, to keep her hold on the sumptuous lifestyle she admittedly loved.
How ironic it all was, he reflected. Just when he'd stopped caring, Katherine had become everything he'd convinced himself she was, back in the days before their marriage. Gavin now thought of that era as a time of foolish bliss; he'd been ensnared by his own illusions, and he had no intention whatsoever of repeating the error.
The passenger ferry came into port, and crew members shouted to one another as they tied the vessel to the pilings and put down the plank. It was a bright, noisy, blue-skied day, and instead of going ahead of him, to the hospital and the patients who awaited him there, Gavin's mind strayed back to the island, and the woman. She had watched him go with red-rimmed eyes, her chin at a proud, obstinate angle, and he knew the image would haunt him until he saw her again.
The door of an especially fine carriage popped open as he passed, intent on finding a cab, and Caroline Raynes peeked out, beaming, "Gavin!"
He wasn't wearing a hat—he hated them because they made his scalp sweat—but he touched a nonexistent brim anyway. Caroline, the niece of the very forward-thinking Dr. Elliott Raynes, a colleague of Gavin's, was a beauty with blond hair and flirtatious brown eyes. She'd offered herself to Gavin on more than one occasion, as though her favors were of no more consequence than a platter of sweetmeats and exotic fruits.
He'd always meant to help himself—some other time. Now, just returned from a fresh baptism in the fires of physical pleasure, Gavin was only too aware of his vulnerability to Katherine, and he knew he'd better do something about it.
Fast.
Dr. Gavin Winslow had finally decided to take a mistress—not because he really wanted or needed anything more than the cataclysmic pleasure Katherine gave him in his own bed. No, what he needed was a defense against the wiles of his lovely wife.
"Hello, Caroline," he said, and returned his smile.
"On your way to the hospital?" Caroline's voice was like chiming cowbells, and Gavin wondered why he'd never taken notice of that singularly annoying fact before.
He nodded, and she offered him a ride, just as he'd known she would. Seated across from her in the elegant, tufted-leather interior of the carriage, he studied the slender lines of her figure.
Katherine was plumper, especially since she'd had the baby, he thought, but he liked feeling her softness beneath him, like a scented featherbed.
"Gavin?" Caroline sounded petulant, and Gavin steered his wandering attention back to the matter at hand.
"I don't think I've ever seen you looking lovelier," he said.
"I'm going back to the city," Katherine announced, two weeks after Gavin had left the island. In that time, she hadn't had so much as a terse note from him, let alone a visit, and her mind was filled with all sorts of dreadful visions.
"Gavin hasn't sent for us," Marianne pointed out, as though that settled the whole issue. It was a rainy afternoon, and the two women were seated on the sunporch, Marianne stitching a sampler, Katherine writing. She'd been recording memories of her other life as fast as she could, and it was a good thing, too, because with every passing day she could recall less of the place beyond the crystal bridge. Before long, she guessed, she would probably forget it entirely.
"Of course he hasn't," Katherine muttered furiously. "He's too busy entertaining his mistress!" The social column in that day's issue of the Seattle Times had linked Gavin with Caroline Raynes, and Katherine had been in torment ever since she'd read it.
Marianne didn't even look up from her sewing. "All men have mistresses, Katherine," she said. "It's a fact of life."
"It isn't going to be a fact of my life," Katherine countered. Then she marched upstairs, prepared Christopher to travel, packed her own things, and sent the caretaker around for the carriage.
When the ferry left that afternoon, Katherine was aboard it, along with Maria and Christopher. It was time for action; Katherine loved her man, and she meant to fight for him.
She arrived at the mansion overlooking the harbor only to find that preparations were being made for an elaborate yard party. Colored Chinese lanterns hung from wires, and ribbon streamers decorated the rose arbors and the garden benches. Tables had been set up, and extra servants bustled back and forth, carrying chairs and food and more decorations.
At first Katherine was delighted. Then she realized she not only hadn't been invited to this party, she wasn't supposed to know about it. Her temper bubbled up like mercury in a desert thermometer.
"Take Christopher upstairs, please," she said to a wide-eyed Maria, who obeyed without question. After tossing her gloves onto the marble-topped table in the entry way, Katherine started for the kitchen.
Katherine was not surprised to find Caroline Raynes there, consulting with the cook, and yet her emotions were as volatile as dry gunpowder in hell. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.
The cook backed away and then fled through the dining room d
oorway, rightly sensing the approach of disaster.
"I might ask the same thing of you," Caroline responded coolly. "It was my understanding that Gavin had consigned you to the island, where you couldn't get into any trouble." She smiled with acid sweetness. "You know. Like you did before."
"Get out," Katherine said with quiet menace.
Caroline evidently sensed Katherine's determination, for some of the color drained from her cheeks, leaving her rouge to stand unaided. "But the party—"
"There isn't going to be any party, Miss Raynes," Katherine broke in. "And you may interpret that statement as you see fit."
"Gavin will have something to say about this!" Caroline snapped, but, nonetheless, she snatched up her little beaded handbag and headed for the door.
"He certainly will," Katherine replied. She was thinking of the eighteenth-century dueling pistols that hung on the wall of his study over the fireplace, and wondering where a person went to buy musket balls. Or whatever they fired.
When Katherine got her wits about her again, she noticed the big cake on the counter, and everything fell into place. Of course. It was Gavin's birthday, and as his wife, she should have known that. She should have been the one to plan a celebration.
When Gavin entered his study half an hour later, he looked more than a little surprised to find Katherine seated at his desk, solemnly pondering, the dueling pistol she'd taken down from the wall.
"Happy birthday," she said pleasantly, still simmering. Then she frowned at the gun in her hand. "Tell me, does this thing still work? If so, I'd like to change your gender right about now."
Gavin didn't comment. He simply approached the desk and lifted one of the pages from her journal that she had laid there, the one describing the Space Needle. "What's this?"
"Proof that I'm not the same person you knew," Katherine answered, hoping her voice wasn't shaking. "Look at the handwriting, Gavin. Did she form her letters like that?"
He lowered the page to look at her, and she realized she'd gotten through by the stunned expression in his gray eyes. "No," he said, and the word came out hoarse and broken. Here was something Gavin couldn't explain away with scientific babble, and Katherine could see that he was troubled. "Katherine…"
She laid the pistol on the desktop and stood to face her husband with tremulous dignity. "Did you sleep with Caroline, Gavin? Is she your mistress?"
He was still staring at her, as though she were some kind of freak. He seemed to be stricken speechless, and Katherine marveled that she hadn't thought to show him samples of her handwriting before. Maybe, she reasoned, she hadn't wanted to, subconsciously, until she was ready to make a full commitment to this time, this place, this man.
"Gavin?" she prompted.
"No," he said. "I planned to, but it just never happened."
Katherine laid her hands on his lapels. "Good, because I love you with my whole heart and soul, Gavin Winslow, and I plan to keep you so well satisfied that you won't need another woman. Ever. And you can trust me, because I'm not the Katherine you knew, and I'll never hurt you."
She felt his powerful shoulders move under her hands in an involuntary shudder. His jawline clenched as he struggled visibly to control his emotions, and once again Katherine was filled with tenderness, thinking how he'd suffered.
"Tell me who you are… where you came from… how such a thing could happen…"
She touched an index finger to his lips. "Not now, Dr. Winslow. At the moment, you have a birthday present to unwrap."
A smile lit his eyes, and he took her hand. "That's scandalous Mrs. Winslow. After all, the servants are around and there's about to be a party."
"The servants are all deaf," Katherine responded teasingly, "and if there's a party, why, that's all the more reason to celebrate."
They climbed the stairway hand in hand, aware only of each other. Gavin lifted her into his arms and carried her over the threshold of the master suite, his lips already tasting hers.
This encounter was unlike their earlier couplings, however, for there was no leisurely pleasuring, no tempting and teasing. The hunger was simply too great, because of their long separation and their newfound accord, and there could be no waiting.
Somehow, fumbling, now laughing under their breaths, now kissing playfully, they managed to undress each other. Then Gavin laid Katherine gently on the side of the bed, positioned himself between her thighs, and glided into her.
For Katherine, the sensations were far more profound than mere pleasure; this experience was spiritual as well, something that had been preordained at the conception of the universe. She gave a primitive, guttural cry as Gavin lunged, withdrew, and lunged again, and when her body began its dance of release, it seemed that her mind soared free.
She found herself standing on the crystal bridge again, felt a deep and abiding fear because she knew she could be called away from Gavin forever. Behind her was 1895, Gavin, Christopher, Marianne, Maria. Ahead was darkness, and that was when Katherine realized her old body had died.
"The other Katherine," she asked of the shimmering light. "What happened to her?"
She is at peace, the light answered, without words.
Katherine was relieved. "Let me go back to 1895," she pleaded. "Please. That's where I belong, where I've always belonged."
You have made your choice, the light replied.
Katherine found herself in Gavin's bed again, her face wet with tears, her body still trembling with the aftershocks of her release. Gavin was breathing hard, his muscular back moist under her palms, and she rejoiced because she had a lifetime to make love with him, plenty of time to tell him about the crystal bridge and the world on the other side.
"I love you," he said.
Katherine kissed the top of her husband's forehead. It might have been his birthday, but she'd been the one to get the gift.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten