She inclined her head stiffly and went down the hall toward her own room. Strangely, I felt almost sorry for her, perhaps because I knew how I would have suffered if he had spoken so to me.
Jeremy smiled shyly at his uncle and ran off to his room.
“Are you pleased with me now?” Brandon asked. “The boy is wholly in your charge.”
I answered him carefully, not wanting him to guess that I was still shaken, and not only from what had just happened.
“Thank you, Mr. Reid. I will do what I can for him.” My words sounded primly stiff to my own ears, and I could not help it.
“What a difficult young woman you are!” he cried in exasperation. “For an evening I permit myself to be managed on every score. I give you whatever you desire, and still you look at me in that grave, disapproving way that sends me off with a guilty conscience. What are you objecting to now, may I ask?”
Disapproving of him? I thought. Was that the way I looked? If it was, the fact was fortunate. I knew his words were a mockery. Brandon Reid would always behave as he pleased and manage his conscience as he saw fit.
I answered him with evasion. “When I hear you speak so cuttingly to another, I can only wonder when you will turn words equally sharp upon me.”
Once more he surprised me. He put out a finger and tilted my reluctant chin so that the thin gaslight touched my face. “I would like never to hurt you, Megan. But you would never be fooled by light promises. When the whim moves me, I may very well deal you a blow that seems ruthless. You will be wise never to expect kindness from me for long. Other considerations, perhaps, but not always kindness.”
“Only the boy matters,” I told him swiftly. “If you will be kind to him, then I shan’t so much as wince if you grow angry with me.”
“The bargain is made,” he said. “At least for now. It’s not something I’ll promise forever, but I’ll try this experiment for as long as I can. Certainly you’ve effected a remarkable improvement in Jeremy. At this rate, I should be able to leave him in your hands when our next Egyptian expedition makes up early in the year.”
Jeremy called to me, and I nodded silently and hurried to his room. I sat down on the bed beside him, and all my movements were calmly automatic. Jeremy reached up and put his arms about me. I held him close, yet even as I kissed his cheek and drew the covers over him, even as I moved to turn out the gas, something cold and heavy weighed within me.
When I returned to the hall, she was waiting for me. The brown figure stood in the shadows before my door and there could be no slipping past her without speaking. I had to brush close to reach the doorknob, and she put her cold fingers on my bare forearm, stopping me there. I winced, my flesh shrinking from her touch.
“I saw,” she whispered. “But don’t imagine that you can succeed in what you intend. Miss Leslie will be home soon, and then you’ll not be allowed to stay in this house—no matter what he says.” She flicked her head scornfully toward the stairs.
“I’ve done nothing that requires an accounting,” I said. “I will be happy to tell Mrs. Reid every detail of this evening if she wishes it.”
Miss Garth did not answer. She folded her hands across her body and turned away. So softly did she move that I heard scarcely a footfall as she returned to her room. Quickly I slipped through my door and closed it tightly behind me.
I lighted no lights, but stood there in the darkness, fighting off the spell of evil that seemed to emanate from the woman. She might well cause trouble. She might threaten my very presence in this house. Yet it was not of her I must think in this sharply lucid moment. It was of the possible truth of her accusation.
I stood before the window, heedless of the cold, looking out upon a clear and starry night. How many were the silent stars. How complete my mortal insignificance. Yet the hurt within me seemed as vast and engulfing as the universe. I turned from the window and began to undress, paying little heed to the movements of my fingers or to what I did with my clothes. My mind was wide awake, and my thoughts were merciless.
I, who had never been truly in love before, had fallen desperately, foolishly in love with Brandon Reid. When he frowned at me, I was ready to tremble; when he smiled, I yearned toward him like any mindless blossom to the sun. When he held me in his arms I wanted only to stay there for always. And when he told me he would soon be away on a trip to far places, I ached with knowledge of coming emptiness, of the loneliness that waited for me when he was gone. Yet all the while this man was married to another woman. Married to the mother of the boy whose presence held me here in this house.
I did not sleep easily or well that night, and there was much that I could not dismiss from my mind. I kept remembering Brandon’s eyes upon me—not always in mockery. Remembering the moment when he had held me so fiercely close. And foolish though I might be, how could I wish not to be in love?
When I slept at last, it was because I had relinquished the struggle and was ready to hug to my heart the very things that wounded me most.
SIXTEEN
In the morning I wakened to the soft and dreamy mood of a woman newly in love that no feeble effort of reason could dispel. A remembrance of all that was sweet and unhurtful held me in an unreasonable enchantment. I longed to see the face of my love and quickly found an excuse to run down to the library. But Brandon had gone—up earlier than I, and off on some business connected, Kate said, with the new expedition he was financing.
I was not entirely sorry. Some stern sentinel in me knew that my mood was far too gentle and yielding this morning. My awareness of love, too new to be submitted to Brandon’s sardonic gaze. I had never felt like this before and so wonderful a thing was my yearning that I did not want the clear light of reality to touch it. The man was real and for all that I longed to see him, I was afraid.
It was a further relief when Miss Garth, instead of Jeremy, remained in bed, ministered to with smelling salts and physics and peppermint tea. This morning I would not think of the day when my own turn to be cruelly hurt might come. I was young and in love for the first time, and I gave myself up to the all-engulfing knowledge. For the moment I did not look ahead to a disastrous future. I merely gave myself over to being.
While Jeremy did his lessons that morning, I sat in the schoolroom, a book in my hands, making sure that I turned a page on occasion, though my imaginings were far more beguiling than the story I used to conceal them. Only now and then was I aware that Andrew and Jeremy occupied the same world with me. I noted absently that Andrew was busy with paper and pencil and that Jeremy seemed restless and not at all attentive to his lessons. Yet I could not bring myself to chide the boy, or even pay much attention to such prosaic problems.
I came out of my dreamy state to some degree when I heard Andrew speak to him sternly.
“Take your book and go to your room, Jeremy. When you can do your lesson with your wits about you, come back and we’ll go over it again.”
Being sent from the classroom was a disgrace. Selina was often punished in this way, but Jeremy, oddly enough, almost never. I shook my head at him in mild reproach, though I could not help but sympathize. Jeremy too had enjoyed an exciting evening and was probably living in a fantasy world, just as I was.
When he had gone, I gave my attention determinedly to my book, not wanting the intrusion of conversation with Andrew. He made no effort to speak, but went on for several moments working with his pencil. Then he tore a sheet of paper from his pad and held it off at arm’s length. The gesture caught my attention, and I saw that he was studying a sketch.
“How do you like it?” he said and pushed the paper toward me across the table.
To my surprise I saw that he had drawn my own face on the paper. The likeness was not a true one. I would not have expected such flattery from Andrew. He had drawn a girl who was far prettier than I, and a far softer, more yielding person as well. Yet I was pleased that he could see me in such a light, for if he saw me thus, perhaps another man would too.
�
��You’ve flattered me exceedingly,” I told him.
He regarded me with an unfathomable expression. “Do you think so? I wouldn’t call it flattery. The face I’ve drawn is not that of a particularly intelligent woman. Here, let me show you.”
I sighed, resigned to an enumeration of my faults. Andrew came to stand beside my chair. As he bent above me, pointing with his pencil, I found myself comparing him with Brandon. How much shorter he was than the man with whom I had danced last night. How very nearly ugly he seemed at times. Especially when the saving grace of humor had gone out of him. Yet I suspected that he might be a better friend than Brandon would ever be, and perhaps more single-mindedly loyal, if his devotion were once given.
He tapped with his pencil the parted lips he had sketched in the picture. “Note the mouth,” he said, as if he criticized objectively the work of a student. “There’s too much softness there, too much of giving. This is not the mouth of a woman ready to make up her mind and do what must be done realistically. Again—take the eyes. Too dreamy, by far. There’s a lack of sound thinking there, too much of a turning inward to some foolish dream.”
I glanced up at him, dismayed, and he took the drawing from my hands and went back to his chair.
“In fact, my poor Megan, what I have shown you here is the face of a woman abjectly in love.”
I started to answer him indignantly, to deny and dismiss, but he would not listen. The anger his wry expression had masked came through to astound me.
“Do you think I’m a fool? Do you think I haven’t seen it happening? Do you think they don’t talk about you in this house? Not that anything else could be expected of Brandon Reid, but I’d have expected better of you, Miss Megan Kincaid.”
“Talk?” I repeated the one word blankly.
“Talk!” he mimicked. “Do you think I haven’t heard about your dinner party last night, to say nothing of your dancing in the hall, and the way Garth was told off. I am far from being a fool, my girl, but I suspect that you are making a very thorough one of yourself.”
I could find only anger with which to answer him. “None of this is your business! Whether you are a fool or not is your own affair and of no interest to me. I haven’t asked your opinion of my actions—actions you know of only through gossip.”
Andrew subsided as quickly as he had exploded. When he spoke again there was pity in his eyes and that was harder to accept than unreasonable anger.
“Poor Megan,” he said. “How could you know about a man like that? Foolish you are, my dear. Perhaps not a fool, but foolish. What else can we think of a dressmaker who falls in love with the grand seigneur? He is to blame. And yet it will be you who will suffer.”
“If you please”—I resorted to haughty chill—“I can manage my own affairs.”
“Of course,” he said. “And you have that right. I apologize. I’ve a temper like all blazes when it gets away from me. But it wasn’t you I was angry with, Megan. It was Reid, who knows very well what he is doing, and has no conscience about it.”
He held the drawing up, as if to study it to better advantage. Then he ripped it down the center, tearing it quite ruthlessly into pieces before my eyes. While I stared, he blew at the bits, letting them drift across the table and onto the floor.
“I’ve shocked you—and that’s fine. Perhaps if you’re shocked badly enough you’ll reject this softness, crush it, no matter what the temporary hurt. You’ll be happier in the long run.”
I could not endure his lecturing. That he had been watching me more closely than I knew, that he held me in so little esteem that he was willing to show his contempt, left me more upset than I would have expected.
“If you’ll excuse me—” I murmured, still haughty, and went to the door, only to meet Jeremy returning with his lesson book in hand. But I could not linger now, even for Jeremy, and I ran past him into the hall. I was just in time to see Miss Garth come out of her room dressed in bonnet and cloak, carrying a traveling bag in her hand.
She blocked my path, and for a moment we stood face to face, neither one giving way. My heart beat more quickly as I met the dark intensity of her look. She did not step aside, and she did not speak. She merely stood there staring at me with such dislike in her gaze that I was once more shaken and not a little frightened. The woman seemed hardly sane at times, and her hatred for me promised nothing but disaster in this house.
“You are—going away?” I faltered.
She drew her cloak more closely about her and turned toward the stairs. “I am going upriver to fetch Miss Leslie home,” she said and swept past me down the stairs.
I went to my room and sat down in its quiet haven. Something of an early-morning fire still remained on the hearth, but I lacked the will to add coals to the embers. Indeed, I seemed washed of all power to move or act. The encounter with Garth had sapped me. I knew now what lay ahead. She could not harm me with looks, however malevolent, but she could injure me viciously with words. I knew such words would now be spoken in a torrent of abuse to Leslie Reid. I suspected, too, which one of us Mrs. Reid would believe.
Yet, from this sapped and directionless state into which I had fallen, I must now begin from the beginning and rebuild myself into a woman of purpose and will. I must build, not in the shape of a tremulous girl in love, nor in the guise of the monstrous creature Miss Garth would represent me to be. I must begin with the truth.
And what was the truth?
It was true that there had been nothing outwardly wrong last night when Brandon had joined Jeremy and me at the table. Nothing wrong, indeed, in the moments of our playful dance together down the hall. There had been only that instant when he had held me close and I had felt a fierce exultance in him and an answering response in myself. But was not such an instant enough to destroy my usefulness where Jeremy was concerned? Would it not be better for all of us if I recognized the fact that my work with Jeremy had come to an end, that I could not remain in this house hoping to aid him when my own heart had betrayed me into so senseless a love for his uncle?
Yet—if this was basic truth—I still could not accept it. All that really mattered was Jeremy, and there was still much I could do for him. It was for him that I must fight to remain in this house, and not for my fatal, foolish love. There must now be innocence in my thoughts as well as in my actions if I was to face the boy’s mother with the clear conscience which could be my only weapon.
In those few quiet days that remained, I faced my problem alone and I believe I began to win. That I loved Brandon, I accepted. Perhaps I would always love him. But if I were to remain here and help Jeremy, neither Brandon nor anyone else must know my true feeling. When Jeremy’s mother came home, she must find in me only Jeremy’s instructor and loving friend. There was no other identity I could enjoy in this house.
So did I caution and counsel and steel myself. When Brandon returned in a day or two, I was at first anxious lest he put me to some strain or test. But he did not, and I relaxed one segment of my guard. Perhaps he too had thought better of the way we had both stepped close to a line of danger that must not be crossed. I had retreated in time. I would continue to do so. Or so I told myself.
By the end of the week when Mrs. Reid and Thora Garth returned from upriver, I had reached a state of near equanimity. If my actions had been somewhat less than innocent on the night of the dinner, my conscience was clear enough now. It was what happened from here on that mattered, and I could meet whatever Leslie Reid had to say with no sense of present guilt to trouble me.
That afternoon there was a bustle of activity about the house, with Selina flying up and downstairs, happy to be home, full of her visit to her grandmother, eager to share her experiences with her brother. Jeremy seemed glad to see her and not at all jealous of her trip, as he had been at first.
About Miss Garth there was an air of triumph I could not mistake, and I knew it did not augur well for me. Yet there was no immediate summons from Mrs. Reid. Nothing happened until the following af
ternoon. When Selina came to tell me that her mother wished to see me, I knew the moment had come.
I did not find Mrs. Reid alone in her boudoir. Miss Garth was there, standing watchfully behind her mistress’ chair. Andrew Beach was present too, putting away his painting things. I saw that the portrait on the easel had progressed since he’d last shown it to me. Leslie’s head had come more definitely into being, and I paused to look at the picture, seeking any delay that might further strengthen me in the ordeal ahead.
Andrew’s portrayal surprised me, for he had chosen to paint a woman not only of great beauty, but of generous spirit. The eyes of the portrait regarded me with warm understanding as they read my heart and still forgave. I resisted a startled impulse to turn to the real Leslie for corroboration of what the portrait revealed. Instead, I glanced at Andrew. As he removed the canvas from the easel, our eyes met. His back was to Mrs. Reid and the governess, and his expression was derisively clear. It was as if he had said, “What else did you expect?” A man who painted on commission must please his subject if he wanted other work, he seemed to be telling me, even challenging me to condemn him if I dared.
But it was not Mrs. Reid’s portrait that interested me most at that moment, and when Andrew had gone, I turned toward the woman who had posed for it.
Leslie Reid lay back in the chaise longue, her eyes closed, dark lashes fringed upon her cheeks. The room had been flooded with afternoon light for the sake of Andrew’s painting, but now Miss Garth moved to draw the draperies and light the inevitable candles. From the bedroom she brought the tall brass candlestick and placed it on a nearby table, where it seemed to tower, its flame touching an answering light in Leslie’s bright hair. I thought of Brandon’s reference to a Turkish seraglio and wondered if that candlestick had ever shed light on greater beauty. I breathed the scent of violets and was faintly sickened, even as my resolve strengthened. This woman held Jeremy’s future in her hands and I must not be defeated by whatever was to happen now.
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