Fire's Lady

by Bretton, Barbara

  He swore as he bumped into a gate leg table set along a wall in the narrow hallway. His situation may not have changed, but Madolyn had made certain that everything in the mansion had. New silk drapes hung from the windows and fancy velvet paper covered the walls. Lustrous oak paneling had been ripped down and replaced by cream-color enameled walls. Great sums of money had been siphoned into turning the house into a mock Palace of Versailles.

  One thing, however, still remained the same: the nursery.

  He opened the door and a violent rush of memories dropped him to his knees. It was all the way he remembered it, right down to the last detail. The bed with the eiderdown quilt in bright red and white and blue. The toy soldiers arranged on a battlefield of green felt layered with dust. But it was the tin bank in the shape of a fox terrier that wrenched at his heart. It was a small mechanical marvel that Matthew had found in Boston just before Christopher's second birthday, and it had delighted his son as if it were cast in solid gold.

  The room still echoed with his son's laughter. How Chris's eyes would widen each time Matthew deposited a coin on the terrier's nose and the little dog would wag its tail and open its mouth to catch the coin.

  Eyes burning, Matthew stared at the nursery. Nothing had changed—even the boy's nightshirt still lay draped across the foot of the bed, as if waiting for Christopher. In a house where even the doorknobs had been replaced by newer, more opulent models, this room remained as it had been over four years ago.

  Except for the safe. All that remained of it now was a gaping hole in the candy-cane striped wall. A ripple of fear rose up from the base of his spine as he finally understood what Strawbridge had tried so long to tell him.

  #

  Edward Strawbridge listened to Matthew's accounting, and then leaned back in his swivel chair, fingers steepled.

  "I suspected as much," he said, face grave, "but I could not be certain." Not even his investigators had been able to reach the nursery to see what Matthew had seen.

  Matthew listened as Strawbridge detailed Madolyn's excesses . . . and his losses. Sweat trickled down his back as the enormity of it all sank in.

  "I'll sign anything," he said, jumping to his feet. "I'll do anything, say anything, give her anything at all, but I'll be damned if I stay here any longer than I have to." Three thousand miles away, Alexandra came closer to giving birth to their child and he ached to be with her.

  Strawbridge fingered that anonymous letter Matthew had brought with him across the country. "You miss the point, Matthew. The rules have changed."

  "She wants money, Edward. I'll give her money. She wants the house and it's hers."

  Strawbridge raised his hand. "What she wants, my friend, is to see you suffer and she means to do it the best way she knows how."

  "Madolyn is a greedy, selfish bitch who can be bought and sold at the drop of a diamond. She—"

  "Not this time, Matthew. This time she has someone else concocting the scheme."

  Matthew dismissed Strawbridge's words with a wave of his hand. "That fool Russian count? He's nothing."

  "You're right, Matthew. Count Fedayev is nothing."

  "Then what in hell is the problem, Matthew? What fool has Madolyn been leading around by his manhood?"

  "Stephen Lowell," said Strawbridge. "This time, Matthew, I believe you are in for the fight of your life."

  #

  Christmas came and went at Sea View, but not even the huge candlelit evergreen in the main hallway was enough to instill the Yuletide spirit in Alexandra's aching heart. Each morning she awoke, certain that this would be the day that brought Matthew back to her, and each night she fell asleep knowing that he may never return to her.

  Soon, he promised her in his letters. I promise you, Alex, I'll be back with you as soon as I can.

  Again and again she remembered the day he left and the words of love he'd uttered, words she had hungered to hear, but even that was cold comfort against the loneliness. Each day that passed took them deeper into the heart of winter—and closer to the time when their baby would be born.

  The tugging sensation she had first experienced shortly after Matthew's departure had been occurring at odd intervals and on the day after New Year's it returned with a vengeance.

  "It is too early," she moaned as Dayla and Janine helped her up the stairs and put her to bed. "I am certain this is but another false alarm." You will be alone, the gypsy girl had said. I see no man with you when your time is at hand.

  The two women looked at one another across the bed.

  "It is!" she protested as a new wave of pain ripped through her—sharper, more frightening. "Matthew should be here with me. He promised... he promised..."

  Dayla gently brushed a lock of hair from Alexandra's forehead. "Do not worry," she said in a voice soft as the falling snow. "This is woman's work and we shall stay with you through it all."

  Janine blessed herself then whispered a prayer Alexandra remembered from her girlhood and Alexandra sent her own wishes heavenward that when this was all over, the rest of the gypsy's prediction would come true and a healthy baby daughter would suckle at her breast.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  "A daughter?" Matthew stared at Edward Strawbridge blankly. "I have a daughter?"

  Strawbridge looked down at the transcribed wireless message propped up on his desk. "You have a healthy, six pound baby daughter named Katie. Mother and child are doing fine."

  Matthew sank down into the chair opposite his friend and buried his face in his hands as a thousand conflicting emotions shot through him. All his plans to be with her when her time came had amounted to naught. She had faced childbirth alone and delivered a baby girl. In the blink of an eye Alex had gone from girl to woman to mother while he struggled in vain to obtain his freedom.

  Suddenly he looked up. "Did you say her name was Katie?"

  Edward nodded as he poured them each a celebratory brandy. "Katie, it is."

  "That was my mother's name," Matthew said quietly. In conversation once he had spoken about his mother, about how hard she had worked for her family, about the love she'd shown him. Now, through their daughter, he and Alex were taking that fine woman into the next generation.

  "What the hell do I do now, Edward? I have half a mind to kill Madolyn and that bastard Lowell and be done with it."

  "And spend a lifetime in jail?" Edward handed him his brandy. "Madolyn is unstable and, from what I have ascertained, Stephen Lowell's greed is surpassed only by his passions. They'll tip their hands soon enough, Matthew. Be patient."

  Matthew thought of the woman and child three thousand miles away. "I am tired of being patient."

  "The stakes are too high, Matthew. She means what she says when she threatens to kill Alexandra. Do not risk it now."

  But didn't Strawbridge know that he was the greatest risk of all? He had failed once and tragically with his son. What guarantee was there that he wouldn't fail again?

  #

  "Would you be looking at that now, missus?" Janine exclaimed. "The little sweetheart is smiling at me!"

  Alexandra laughed and finished diapering the rosy baby gurgling up at her from the bed. She simply hadn't the heart to tell Janine that Katie's smile was the result of a gastric disturbance and not mirth.

  "Katie is a brilliant child," she said instead. "She recognizes a friend when she sees one."

  Janine chucked the infant under her pudgy chin. "This little one has changed the house. Why, Mr. Andrew smiles from dawn to dusk with love of her."

  What an amazing addition an infant was to a household. In just four weeks, Katie had brought sunshine to the darkest corners of Sea View and Alexandra had even found it possible to write Marisa a letter informing her of the baby's arrival. The normally dour Cook actually smiled at Alexandra these days while Johnny went out of his way to drop in upon the baby every chance he got, bringing with him new rattles and stuffed animals bound to please an infant. Janine was quite literally beside herself with pleasure; altho
ugh she had helped to raise eight little brothers and sisters, she still delighted in all the work surrounding babies—a fact for which Alexandra would be forever grateful. Dayla was a deep well of wisdom and calm and without her Alexandra doubted she would have survived the first days of Katie's life.

  In the early hours of the morning as Katie nursed, Alexandra and Dayla had had long conversations during which Alexandra began to understand more about the woman her father loved. Dayla was from the Marquesas in the South Seas. She had been wed to a fisherman who went mad, killing their two young sons and leaving Dayla for dead on a lonely stretch of beach. Had it not been for Andrew, who had been traveling the islands, she would not be alive today.

  Angry selfish Andrew Lowell, artist without conscience, had picked Dayla—broken and bleeding—from the sand and carried her back to his cottage where he willed her back to health. She owed him her life; her love was freely given.

  And Alexandra believed it was Dayla's love that enabled Andrew to adore Katie the way he did. To see his stern face light up with pleasure at the sight of the blonde-haired cherub was to see a miracle in progress. It never failed to send Alexandra's heart soaring with pride and happiness.

  In four short weeks, Katie had filled Alexandra's heart with joy, but that joy was incomplete without Matthew by her side. Each morning a letter from San Francisco arrived at the East Hampton post office and each afternoon Johnny delivered it to Alexandra in the library where she and Katie took the sun.

  His words were filled with love and longing as he told her about how the three of them would live as a family one day soon. He told her about Madolyn and her excesses and how Edward Strawbridge swore that any moment now Madolyn would give up the fight and let Matthew go free. Wait, he said in his letters. Wait just a little longer.

  But it seemed to Alexandra that waiting was all she did these days. She waited for Katie to awaken each morning and for her to go to sleep each night. She waited for Johnny to bring the post to her each afternoon and, most important of all, she waited for Matthew to return to her.

  Katie changed with each day that passed, and—with or without Matthew—she would continue to do so.

  Alexandra would continue to wait for Matthew but Katie would wait for no one at all.

  #

  Winter came to an end and with it came the promise of spring. It would be wonderful to take Katie for long walks on the beach but it would be even more wonderful if Matthew were there to share it with them. Sharp painful stabs of anger and resentment surfaced frequently and Alexandra was finding it harder and harder to battle them down.

  "There's mail, missus," Janine said, bustling into the library one day in late March, carrying a stack of envelopes and a large box. "Looks to be another present from Mr. Matthew."

  Alexandra suppressed a sigh for there was nothing Matthew could send that could take the place of seeing his handsome face before her once again.

  She took the package from Janine and carefully unwrapped it, then pushed aside the layers of tissue. "What on earth?" Two signet rings, one diamond bracelet and a tiny gold mesh reticule rested inside the box, along with two letters, one of which was addressed in her mother's childlike hand.

  I enclose my valuables for you. They aren't much of a legacy but then nothing between us was ever the way it should be. Maybe one day your daughter will wear them. When you read this, I will be gone. I did the best I could, Alexandra. I hope you understand.

  Your Mother.

  The other letter was printed on a typewriting machine and signed by a Doctor Beaulieu, director of the Hospitale Sur in Geneva.

  It was your mother's wish that you receive these effects upon her death.

  I should like you to know the ending came peacefully in her sleep. She has arranged for all bills to be paid. You need not trouble yourself on that account. It is with deep sympathy that I am—

  Claude Beaulieu

  "Missus?" Janine shifted nervously from foot to foot. "Is there something I can do for you?"

  Alexandra shook her head numbly. "I would just like to be left alone, Janine, if you would."

  When the Charbonnes died, she had railed against Fate and cursed the gods for taking them from her. Her young heart had ached so that she feared she would die from grief.

  But now she felt nothing.

  Rising, she tucked the box and the letters under her home and made her way upstairs to Andrew's studio. Dayla was playing with Katie in the nursery and he was alone.

  "Andrew?"

  "Speak up, girl!" he called from his chaise longue near the window. "I do not take kindly to stealthy entrances."

  She crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the chaise. "My mother is dead." Her voice was flat, emotionless. "These letters just came."

  He took them from her then read them quickly, lingering for a moment extra on Marisa's note. "She died much before her time," he said at last.

  "I do not feel anything, Andrew. I want to cry for her, but I cannot."

  Awkwardly he patted her hand. "Yours was a difficult relationship. Sorrow will take its own form."

  "I always believed that someday we would find a common ground." She chuckled softly at the thought. "I had even believed Katie might be the miracle who brought us together."

  What there was, was all there could ever be now—and it was a sad legacy.

  For the next week, regret ate away at Alexandra each time she looked at her daughter. Katie would never know her grandmother. Alexandra would never have the chance to reconcile with her mother. The finality of death rocked her to the very core.

  Who could say how much time he or she would be allotted on this earth? In each letter Matthew said, "Wait!" and "Be patient," but how could he know if the time would ever be right for them?

  The child asleep in the crib was a pledge of love, an act of faith and yet he had still to meet her. The days and the weeks raced by her as Alexandra stood quietly, waiting for someone to tell her what to do.

  Once again she was observing her life from a distance, allowing others to determine the path she took and when she took it. First Marisa played God with her life, and now Matthew was trying to, as well. Marisa had allowed an accident of birth to determine the course of her daughter's life; Alexandra would not allow that to happen to Katie.

  Perhaps there might be no future in the cards for her and Matthew McKenna, but Katie was as much a part of Matthew as she was a part of Alexandra and Alexandra would be damned to hell for all eternity if she allowed her daughter to be deprived of a father's love. She had learned that lesson through bitter experience.

  She would head for San Francisco and introduce the man she loved to the child he had fathered and suffer the consequences later.

  One thing was certain: Katie McKenna would grow up knowing both of her parents.

  #

  Andrew was not pleased about her decision but he allowed Alexandra to ask Janine if she would accompany her to San Francisco as a combination of ladies' maid and nanny and the young girl almost collapsed with excitement at the prospect of traveling clear across the country.

  There was much to be done in the two weeks before they boarded the Penn Railroad train for Philadelphia on the first leg of the journey. Dayla offered to help with Alexandra's wardrobe and between her and Janine, Alexandra found herself with more stylish outfits than at any time in her life.

  Finally the day arrived. The suitcases and trunks were neatly stacked in the main hallway, waiting to be loaded into the coach for the trip to the Bridgehampton railroad station. Katie, sensing the excitement, was wide-eyed and fretful and her goodbye visit with her grandfather Andrew was abbreviated.

  Then it was Alexandra's turn.

  "I have given it much thought, Alexandra," he said in his cool, upper-class voice, "and it occurs to me that in many ways besides the obvious I have fallen short of being a good father to you."

  "You cannot be a father before you know your daughter," she said gently.

  "Be that as
it may, you are my only child, girl, and my legal heir."

  "Andrew," she said, standing up, "I do not want to hear talk of death. The coach is almost ready and I—"

  "Sit down!" he commanded. "There are things that need to be said."

  To her utter astonishment, Andrew produced a copy of his will, revised the day after her identity was revealed. In an emotional and most uncharacteristic step, he had eliminated Stephen and bequeathed Sea View and much of his fortune to Alexandra.

  "I have no desire to acquire your wealth," she said bluntly. "I only wish to learn more about you... to have Katie know you."

  Andrew, however, was determined. "All my life I have understood the power of money, the way it gives one person dominion over another. Many times I have been guilty of wielding that power." He had told her the story of Mary Margaret Kilbride kneeling before him to pick up the scattered dollars and he had not spared himself in the telling. "In this society it is always men who have money and women who are without and therein rests the problem." Without further preamble, he handed Alexandra a letter from his attorney which freed fifty percent of her inheritance for her use—and Katie's—now.

  "Matthew McKenna is a good man and a kind one," he said, his voice suddenly cracking with emotion. "I believe he truly loves you. But love, at times, is not enough. I want you to enter this relationship as his equal in all ways, for that is the only way to build a marriage."

  "I cannot," she began but he raised a gnarled hand to stop her.

  "This is not charity, girl, nor an attempt to ease a guilty conscience. This is your birthright long-denied and the legacy you will pass on to your child." He took her hand in his and her throat ached with unshed tears. "Take what is yours, Alexandra, and use it well."