"A compliment, Madolyn?" he drawled, raising his brandy toward her in salute. "Does Vladimir rate such high praise?"
She dismissed her other lover with a wave of her tiny hand. "That is like comparing an appetizer to a main course, darling."
"And I—?"
"You are quite definitely the main course."
"I can do more for you than please you in bed, Madolyn."
"I'm sure you can, but you must understand my feelings. Why would I want to bring Matthew back to San Francisco when I already have access to everything he owns? What can be gained by that?"
"Revenge."
Her brow wrinkled. "I was under the impression revenge is what I have been gaining all along."
This was the opportunity he'd been waiting for since the day he arrived at Ferry Landing.
"He has not been suffering in New York, Madolyn."
He sensed her body stiffening. "As I understood it, Matthew has been ruining himself with drink. He is a lonely, bitter man—exactly the fate I intended for him."
Slowly he withdrew the envelope from his pocket and, equally slowly, removed the letter and unfolded it.
"I appreciate your theatrics, Stephen," she said brusquely, "but you shan't change my mind."
"Listen, first, Madolyn. Listen and then tell me how you feel."
Five minutes later he had enlisted Madolyn McKenna's full cooperation.
"I shall see him dead by my own hand before I see him the father of a child," she swore with savage intensity. "He'll never hold that baby in his arms, Stephen. Of that you can be sure."
For a moment, Stephen Lowell pitied Matthew McKenna.
But only for a moment.
Chapter Twenty-two
Alexandra was reclining on the chaise longue in the bedroom suite she shared with Matthew. She had spent much of the morning watching the snow falling beyond her window and occasionally wielding her knitting needles as she worked on a white christening sacque for the baby.
She held up the garment for Matthew to admire as he came into the room. "It is a miracle to think this child within me shall someday wear this."
He fingered the delicate garment but his eyes were intent upon her and the child within her stirred. Reflexively her hand went to her belly and moved in calming, circular strokes. "What is it? Has Andrew—"
"Andrew is fine." He moved toward the window and leaned against the sill. She watched, trembling, as he drew a deep breath. "I'm leaving, Alex."
"How funny, Matthew!" she said, chuckling. "For a moment I thought you said you were leaving."
He dropped to one knee and took her hand. "I did, Alex. The trap is waiting in the courtyard to take me to the Bridgehampton station."
Why hadn't she noticed he wore his dove grey suit instead of his usual black trousers and white cambric shirt?
"Business for Andrew?" She tried desperately to slow down the erratic pulsing of her heart. "New York City is so far away. Can this trip not wait at least until the snow has stopped falling?" Please do not say it, Matthew. Do not say the words I've feared so long...
"I am returning to San Francisco."
Her knitting clattered to the floor. "Matthew! Why... have I... I do not understand!"
"I have unfinished business."
Her trembling accelerated. It was over... it couldn't be over... the gypsy's words tumbled over and over in her mind. "The baby," she whispered. "You cannot! In just six weeks—"
"In six weeks I will return, Alex." He tilted her chin up so she was forced to meet his eyes. "I hope to return with my freedom."
"You said that was impossible! You said she would never release you."
A flicker of pain showed in his eyes and was quickly extinguished. "I have reason to believe things have changed, Alex, that there may be a chance for a final break between us."
"A divorce?"
"That is my hope."
"Wait, Matthew. Don't—"
"You deserve more, Alex." He rose to his feet, hands clenched at his sides. "The child deserves more."
"The child deserves a father to love him and I deserve to have you at my side." She stood up with great difficulty. "If you go to San Francisco, we both shall be denied."
"This must be settled once and for all."
"Wait until spring," she cried, voice rising in panic. "Wait until the child comes."
"I have asked Janine and Dayla to take special care of you while I'm gone."
"Stay, Matthew," she urged, her tears wetting his cheek. "I cannot bear to lose you."
"You'll never lose me. I'll be back, Alex, before you miss me."
"You are wrong," she whispered, "for already I miss you more than I can bear."
"This child will carry my name, Alex, and you will be my wife in the eyes of man as well as God."
She heard his words but they did not matter, not when weighed against the enormity of losing him.
... you will be alone... I do not see a man...
"Your place is here. I need you with me."
"And I need to go!" His anguish was obvious in his voice but not even that anguish could sway her.
The child stirred again and she knew the battle was lost.
"A few weeks, Alex," he said, pulling her into his arms as close as her belly would allow. "A few weeks and it will all be over."
She said nothing, simply memorized his features with her eyes and hands against the moment when he left.
"You'll be waiting for me here?"
"Don't you know, Matthew?" she asked softly. "I have nowhere else to go."
He kissed her, the sweetness of his mouth mingling with the salt from her tears, and she wondered what had happened to her pride.
"I love you, Alexandra," he said as he turned to leave. "If you believe nothing else, believe that."
The door closed quietly after him and she sank down slowly onto the bed, wondering why he couldn't say those words to her until he was ready to leave.
#
Matthew slumped back in his seat as the coach rattled its way down the curving drive leading away from Sea View—and away from Alexandra.
He was breathing; his heart was beating inside his chest; but he was dead just the same.
He wanted to grab the reins from Johnny and race back to Sea View and let the rest of the world go straight to hell but the pale blue letter in his pocket made it impossible. How strange that this one anonymous piece of mail with a New York City postmark could do what Edward Strawbridge's thousand missives could not: force him to return to San Francisco.
He needn't unfold the letter to know what it said; the printed words were etched for all time within his brain.
You will pay Madolyn McKenna's gambling debts in person at the offices of your attorney Edward Strawbridge in San Francisco within two weeks. If you do not, your whore and her unborn child will die. Will more blood be on your hands?
The letter could be a fraud, in which case his trip to San Francisco will have been for naught. But should he ignore the missive and lose Alexandra in the bargain—it didn't bear contemplation. The pain he'd felt when he lost Christopher was not something he could endure a second time.
He had no choice. The trip was imperative but to leave her unprotected was unthinkable and, without hesitation, he'd used Andrew's name and position with the local police force to procure an extra measure of security at Sea View while he was gone.
If he loved her, he would leave her.
There was no other way.
#
Women make choices.
Men do as they will.
In the days after Matthew's sudden departure, the reality of her position in life became terrifyingly clear to Alexandra.
Was this how her mother had felt then, all those years ago when she discovered she was carrying a child—trapped by her own body, helpless against a world dominated by men and their needs, their rules.
How arrogant she'd been in her pure and innocent youth, so certain her mother's sins could never possibly b
e hers, that she would be mistress of her life and not mistress to a man who could never make her his wife.
She had been as helpless before the forces of love as Mary Margaret Kilbride, as foolish and thoughtless and trusting as a child, and she wished she could sit down at her escritoire and tell her mother exactly that. Words, however, were ungainly creatures and she found that in French she said too much and in English she said too little and once again her attempts ended up in the fireplace.
Ten days after Matthew left, she received a letter from him, a letter filled with love and longing but without answers to the questions that plagued her days and nights.
"Make me understand," she demanded of Andrew one morning in his studio. "Explain why he left me now when I need him most."
"He must have his reasons," said her father. "It is not up to me to question them."
"Is your kinship with Matthew stronger than our blood ties?" she challenged, standing over him with her back swayed against the weight of her belly. "Would you put me through torment to assuage his male ego?"
"I know nothing of his reasons for returning to San Francisco."
She eyed him long and hard. "And if you knew, would you tell me?"
"Now I believe I would." Andrew cleared his throat. "Off with you, girl. I have some correspondence to attend to. I cannot sit here all day in idle gossip."
Alexandra met up with Dayla in the library.
"He is looking to do his correspondence, Dayla," she said as she slowly lowered herself into the leather wing chair near the window.
"Your session is over?" As usual the dusky-skinned woman was in white, but these days she wore a loose gown of bengaline mohair, rather than the cotton she favored in the summer.
A dull pain tugged at her mid-section and she hesitated a moment before answering. "Yes, it's—oh!"
"You have pain?" Dayla was at her side in an instant.
"It was over before it began. I am certain I strained myself changing the curtains in the nursery alcove."
"Your time is nearly upon you, Alexandra." Dayla's eyes were warm with compassion. "Your labor could be starting."
Alexandra shook her head. "Not for another month." Not until Matthew returns.
"Children come in their own time."
"I know," said Alexandra, massaging her belly. "And the time is not yet upon me." Upon Andrew's urging, Dr. Harding had been visiting regularly and he predicted the birth would occur near the end of January.
With a rustle of her skirts, Dayla excused herself to help Andrew with his correspondence.
This child will not come yet, Alexandra thought fiercely. She could not allow that notion access to her mind. Matthew would return. He would be there with her when her time came. He would hold her hand as their child drew its first breath and uttered its first cry.
Alexandra was not her mother, destined to carve a life from the rock of hardship. She had found love in great abundance and she would hold onto it, both for her sake and for the sake of her unborn child.
#
San Francisco
It was as Matthew remembered it: a world of controlled excesses outsiders could only guess at. He stood on the ornately carved balcony and looked out at the growing landscape of San Francisco.
From where he stood to Russian Hill, it all belonged to him. Houses. Three fine stores. Acres of land waiting to be developed, barren now in the dim winter light with hundreds of leafless trees standing guard. The country home some miles north with the crowded stables and the empty nursery.
All his.
All nothing.
None of this made any sense. He had been in town for two days and had yet to see Strawbridge. Edward, it seemed, was in Chicago and would not be returning until this afternoon. Matthew intended to be in his office as soon as Edward arrived, complete with the anonymous letter and all the cash money he could get his hands upon.
Madolyn had arrived, with her current lover, the night before and they'd had an unfortunate run-in on the stairs. The urge to fling her over the railing and send her crashing to her death had been so intense that he'd bolted for the library and the soothing qualities found in a bottle of whiskey.
She was at the bottom of this. He knew it in his gut and he intended to tell Strawbridge exactly that when he saw him. But, no matter the game, he would play by her rules if it meant keeping Alexandra and the child safe from harm.
He heard the rustle of silk from the street below and stepped back inside.
Madolyn's high trill pierced the air as she called to her paramour, Count Vladimir. "Hurry, darling! I don't care to be kept waiting for my breakfast."
Vladimir's low rumbling laugh drifted up to where Matthew stood inside the French doors. "You did not feel that way earlier, my love."
Matthew slammed shut the French doors and stormed back inside the library.
Damn her thieving soul to hell!
Four years since he'd left his own home in disgust and she was still behaving like a rutting bitch in heat.
"Divorce you?" she had said when he first discovered her flagrant infidelities. "You must be mad, darling. No, I intend to retain what belongs to me—your money and my pleasure. And there's nothing you can do to stop me. Now get out!"
Four years ago he had done exactly that, but that was before Alexandra, before the baby, before he'd discovered that he wasn't the no-good bastard she had painted him to be.
She floated into the room in a cloud of perfume and sexual satisfaction but, to his delight, the sight of him caused her fair skin to flush with anger and her blue eyes to crackle with fury.
"And what are you doing here?" she asked as she poured herself a brandy. "I thought you would seek shelter in a hotel."
"I may be mistaken," Matthew drawled, "but I believe I am still owner of this house."
"This house means nothing to you, darling. You haven't even bothered to pay the taxes. Vladimir was kind enough to see that the servants were compensated for their time otherwise I should be living in abject squalor."
He narrowed his eyes and looked at her.
"You hardly look as if you live in a boarding house, dear wife." Although it was still before noon, Madolyn wore rings on every finger and matching diamond earrings and choker.
"'Dear wife?'" She threw her head back and laughed, exposing small even teeth. "Have you come back to reconcile our differences?"
"Having been cuckolded once, I have no desire to repeat that experience." He casually lit a cigar, trying to control the flame of rage burning inside him. "I want to dissolve this farce we call a marriage."
She gracefully reclined on a red velvet chaise longue and lifted her heavy hair off her neck.
"Something new has been added to the stew. Have we found ourselves a paramour, darling? Who is she? A New Orleans coquette? A Texas rose? A sensible New Englander?"
He crossed the salon with long strides and stood over this stranger, his wife. "I want no connection with you, Madolyn. You broke our vows. You drove me from my own home with your accusations. This last threat of yours was beyond even your normal capabilities."
"Truths, darling, not accusations. I would have my son alive today were it not for you. I would have my brother healthy and able to walk today were it not for you. I would—"
"Damn you to hell!" He slammed his fist into the wall, knocking a small framed watercolor to the floor. The sound of breaking glass echoed in the cavernous room. "Will you never accept the fact your drunken brother gave the reins to a child. He couldn't regain control of the horses. He—"
"Shut up!" She leaped to her feet. "I don't want to hear it. Why were you the one who survived?"
He grabbed her shoulders roughly and shook her until one of her diamond earrings flew across the room.
"I lost a son, too, Madolyn. You're not the only one who grieves."
The anger in her eyes was replaced by fear.
"Divorce me," he pressed. "You can have everything. Let it go, Madolyn. Let me go!"
She pulle
d from his grasp and stood a few feet away, flushed and panting with fury.
"You'll never be free of me—not so long as you live. Yes, I brought you here. Yes, I know about your slut and her child." Her china blue eyes glittered with malice. "How can you be sure the bastard she carries is even yours, Matthew? How can you be—"
He lifted his right arm and swept the porcelain vases and Faberge eggs from the marble mantel. "Our marriage was over long before the accident. It was only for the boy's sake that I stayed with you. I wanted him to have a real family but even that was denied me, thanks to you and your whoring."
"Can I be blamed for seeking elsewhere what I could not find at home? You are not the man you claim, Matthew, my love."
"Then let me go. Cut me free and build a new life. Name your price, Madolyn, and it's yours."
Greed distorted her lovely features for a moment. "We begin with money, but it is more than your gold that I'm looking for."
"I lost a son too. That is enough pain for one lifetime. Set me free."
"I'll see your woman dead before I grant that wish. All it will take is a message over the wireless and—"
Fury exploded red-hot behind his eyes and he grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her back. Her yelp of pain barely penetrated his rage. "Harm her or the baby and I'll slit your pretty throat from ear to ear." He released her and stepped away. "You have my word on that, dear wife."
"May you always have what you deserve," she murmured, her voice a sugary whisper. "Nothing. A lifetime of nothing."
"Amazing," he said, looking down at her. "I wonder how it is I ever loved you."
She yawned. "You did once, darling. And this is how it ends."
He slammed the door behind him and her laughter followed him as he strode down the hall. Tucked away in what once was Christopher's nursery was a wall safe, the combination of which existed only in his memory. There was money in there. He would take that money and then he would go to Edward Strawbridge and order his attorney to bribe a judge or buy an official or do whatever damned thing he had to do to get him his freedom.
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