Mittman, Stephanie

by The Courtship

  Ash was silent. That investigator of Cabot's wasn't making any progress at all, according to Charlotte. Was he supposed to remain confined to his room, twiddling his thumbs, while the man who had set fire to his business walked free?

  "Tell me that Moss picked up those damn lilies." Cabot's face was red, his nostrils flared, as he spoke.

  "I only meant to show her my appreciation, Cab. They're called stargazers, and I've seen her, once or twice, staring out the window and dreaming. Haven't you?"

  "You went out," Cabot said, the flared nostrils now the softest of his angry features. "Didn't you?"

  "For God's sake, there's a man out there somewhere who set my business on fire, wiped out my stock, convinced my partner I was a goddamn firebug, and killed people in the process. On top of all that he's left me holding the bag. You're damn right I went out, Cabot, and I'll be going out again. You know, for example, what Jack Perry is selling Cuervo for? Twice what I was getting. What do you think of that?"

  "I think if you go out again, you're on your own. I don't like cases I can't win, Ashford, and I'm beginning to dislike yours a whole lot."

  ***

  "All right, Kathryn, I've had quite enough of this game you're playing," Charlotte said the following day when she'd finally cornered the older woman with her nose pressed up against her embroidery board near the fireplace in her bedroom. "Mrs. Mason has chased me up and down this house half the day asking me whether I wish to serve oysters on the half shell with soup à la reine or croûtes aux champignons with mock turtle soup. Maria suddenly doesn't know one set of sheets from another, and Rosa isn't sure the floor is polished to my satisfaction. I'm only waiting for Arthur to find me and ask me what time Cabot wishes his bath."

  Behind her there was a knock, and she turned to find Arthur in the open doorway, a basket in his hand and a clean towel over his arm. "Pardon me, ma'am, but—"

  "I don't know," she said angrily without waiting to hear the question. "I have no idea. Ask Mr. Whittier. Ask Miss Kathryn. Ask Rosa or Maria or whoever might know, but don't ask me!"

  "You really do have to learn to run a household, dear," Kathryn said with a sigh. "I won't live forever, and you are the woman of the house. What is it, Arthur?"

  "Might I speak to you, ma'am?" he said, addressing Charlotte nervously.

  "Arthur, if this is about Mr. Whittier—"

  He cut her off. "It's about the rabbit, ma'am," he said, holding the basket out to her. "I was cleaning up Mr. Whittiers old chair as Mr. Ash had asked me to, and I didn't see him there by the wheel and—"

  "Oh, good glory!" she said, rushing to take the basket from him and set it on Kathryn's bed.

  "He isn't dead, is he?" Kathryn asked.

  "No, ma'am," Arthur answered. "But I've cut up his foot a bit."

  "I thought rabbit's feet were supposed to be lucky," Kathryn said, peering over Charlotte's shoulder.

  "Not for the rabbits that have to part with them," Charlotte answered. She wasn't superstitious to begin with, but if a person believed that there was some force out there that would keep a person safe at the expense of a rabbit, she said poo on any such force and stepped on every crack she could in that person's presence.

  Van Gogh whimpered as she examined his paw. Apologizing to him over and over, she gently tried to trace the tiny bones within his fur and concluded that she knew next to nothing about a rabbit's anatomy.

  "I'll need some gauze for the bleeding, and a splint might be a good idea," she told Arthur. "Do you think that you could find something I could use in the conservatory?" Cabot had all sorts of sticks for training his plants to grow the way he expected them to.

  "I'm afraid that Mr. Whittier is in there with the investigator again," Arthur said, screwing up his nose at the mention of him. "But perhaps Mrs. Mason has something you could use."

  "That man!" Charlotte said through gritted teeth. "I don't know why Cabot needs him when just one look at Ash's face ought to be enough to convince a jury of his innocence. Why, just the idea that he could do something as awful as set a fire anywhere but in a woman's heart..."

  Kathryn gasped.

  Arthur coughed.

  And Charlotte turned three shades of red.

  "That'll be all, Arthur," Kathryn said, and waited for the servant to leave before continuing. She raised one eyebrow at Charlotte and pursed her lips. "So you think if people just got a good look at Ashford that would do it?"

  "I think that the truth ought to be obvious and that Cabot's sneaking around trying to buy something that merely resembles the truth is sordid and implies that he doesn't believe fully in Ash's alibi or his innocence."

  "So Ash has done nothing wrong, but in your eyes, Cabot has?" Kathryn's eyebrow had not come down yet. Perhaps she was remembering a time when Charlotte wouldn't have thought Cabot could so much as throw a cigar band on the sidewalk, when the man walked on water for her. He'd taken a few dips since then. Like during the Murphy case when he'd threatened to reveal the parentage of a certain small child unless the child's mother cooperated with his investigation. He had been looking for the truth, of course, but it didn't make his tactics more palatable.

  And there was the time that a witness for the prosecution mysteriously failed to show up in court and everyone was baffled but Cabot. And what had he offered her in his own defense? The ends, Charlotte. The ends...

  He ought to just have Machiavelli's words printed below his name on the letterhead.

  "Charlotte, be a good girl and take the rabbit and go. I'm very tired." Kathryn sat down in the overstuffed chair by her fireplace, closed her eyes, and leaned her head back. Her hair had lost some of its silvery glow in the last few weeks and looked more white and less abundant than it had always seemed. Her skin, too, seemed whiter, thinner, like parchment over her bones. "I think I'd like to just rest awhile."

  "I'm sorry if I've upset you," she said as she touched the old woman's hair and then laid a kiss atop her head.

  "I just can't see how this will work out all right for all of you, Charlotte. I just don't." A dainty sigh parted her lips, and then her breathing evened.

  "Sweet dreams," Charlotte whispered, unfolding the patchwork lap blanket that Cabot's grandmother had made and covering her mother-in-law with it.

  ***

  "Aren't you freezing out here?" The screen door slammed behind Ash as he joined Charlotte out on the back porch. "It can't be more than forty-five degrees and you haven't even got a shawl around you."

  "I didn't want Cabot finding me," she said. She'd assembled everything she needed to wrap poor Van Gogh's foot, and supposed she ought to be grateful for the help Ash would be able to offer her with the rabbit, but just having him near her hurt—hurt her heart and her head and her pride. She told herself it was only the cold that left her feeling numb as he came up behind her, the breeze that made her shiver as his hand brushed her arm when he reached out and petted the rabbit's soft fur.

  "Why didn't you go up to the high room?" he asked, pulling the winter throw from the wicker rocker and wrapping it around her shoulders.

  She left the question unanswered. He'd made it clear he didn't want her, that his obligations to Cabot ran deeper than his passing interest in a woman who didn't even know how intimately she'd been touched. Well, they didn't say that blood was thicker than water for nothing, but she'd never known how true that old saying was.

  Or how much it could hurt to know that even though he wanted her—it wasn't only her breath that was quickening as they stood there together looking down at the pathetic rabbit whose eyes were locked with theirs—he would never betray his brother.

  Even if his brother didn't want her any more than she wanted him.

  She shrugged the ratty cloth off her shoulders. "I can't work like that," she told him, concentrating on wrapping Van Gogh's paw tightly enough to protect it while it healed. The rabbit fought her and backed up within the basket. "Do you think you could..." she asked Ash, gesturing at the bunny.

  "Oh
, of course," he said, reaching into the basket and grasping the rabbit's middle. "Where should I hold him?"

  "Well, just because I have to hurt him doesn't mean I want to get hurt myself." She moved Ash's right hand—a big mistake—and tried to place it where it would do the most good.

  "You're doing it for his own good," Ash reassured her. Oh, but his hand was warm, despite the cold, and pliant under hers, as if he'd do with it whatever she wished. But he wouldn't do what she wanted most, and even if he did, without loving her, what would it matter?

  "He doesn't know that," she answered. "Be sure to hold his head in place so that he can't bite me."

  "He does know," Ash said.

  "Well, when I hurt him, he isn't going to care about how much better he'll feel in the long run. He's just going to want to take a chunk out of me, and I don't think I can stand any more pain than I've already got."

  "I won't let him hurt you," he said, as if a little rabbit bite could compare to the damage Ash himself had already inflicted. She finished with her doctoring in silence, but continued to fuss over the rabbit rather than look at the man who was making her breath come out in ragged little gasps she preferred to blame on the cold.

  He put the chair cover over her shoulders again. "Why is it you always seem to need warming, Charlie Russe?"

  Oh, how he made her lose herself with just his low soft voice, his pet name.

  The poor rabbit was losing patience with her, but still she adjusted the bandage rather than look at him.

  "I was surprised to learn that Cabot has an interest in your warehouse," she said, unwilling to let the conversation get out of hand, to let herself be toyed with and turned away yet again.

  Ash let the rabbit's head go and pulled her away from the poor creature. All it took was his hands on her upper arms to bring back all the feelings she'd felt in his bed. She fought hard to keep her wits about her.

  It wasn't easy with him running his hands up and down her arms and pretending that all he was doing was trying to keep her warm.

  ***

  Was the woman never warm? he wondered, and remembered a time when he felt her melt in his arms. He closed the gap between them until his legs made waves in her skirts.

  "Cabot's interest?" she repeated, waiting patiently for him to answer her.

  He let his arms drop. Cabot's interest. Cabot's wife. "Yeah, well, I was pressed for money when the opportunity to go into business with Sam came up. Kathryn offered me a loan, but Cabot intervened. He convinced me that I couldn't risk what money my father had left my mother and offered to loan me the money himself."

  "Have you ever paid him back?" she asked.

  However did Cabot resist those eyes? When she was happy they glowed until they warmed his soul, and when they were sad, like they were now, he felt as if he'd sell his soul just to put the sparkle back in them.

  "No," he said. "I tried several times, but he never let me." Of course, it was no surprise when he thought about it. After all, Cabot's need to control those around him was bigger than the state of California. And as long as he had given Ash his start, and never let him repay the loan, Ash could never really take credit or pride in the business he would build.

  "So in a way the fire served to sever a cord he refused to cut himself."

  She nodded at him, shivering and reminding him once again of the other night in his room. Hell, everything reminded him of that night. Not a moment went by when he wasn't feeling the softness of her skin, the silkiness of her curls, not a second passed that he didn't remember the look on her face when he told her she'd have to get her loving from her husband. He imagined it hurt her nearly as much as it had hurt him.

  He touched the tip of her nose to take her temperature. "You should go in," he told her. "You're always freezing."

  "I just want to find Argus and give him one of Mrs. Mason's brioches from breakfast. I'm trying to bribe him into better behavior." She called to the peacock and strode out onto the back lawn in search of the wretched bird. Ash followed along behind her, carrying Van Gogh in his arms and whispering to the rabbit about how he supposed he'd follow the woman right into Lake Merritt if that was where she wanted to go.

  The peacock sauntered out from behind the eucalyptus tree dragging his tail behind him, and looked at Charlotte suspiciously.

  "You're a nice peacock," she told the nasty animal. "So pretty! You just need a little more attention, don't you?" she said, reaching out to pet the bird behind its regal crown.

  Quicker than Ash could react, the peacock had snapped at Charlottes finger and then pecked again at the side of her hand. Grabbing at her wounds, she dropped the biscuit and yelled at the bird.

  "I was just trying to be nice to you." Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. "Stupid bird!"

  He pulled her hand to where he could see it and wished he could wring the bird's neck himself. Instead he waved at the bird like some madman, sending it running and squawking across the lawn toward the lake. Then Ash guided Charlotte back to the porch, where he blotted at her hand with the leftover gauze.

  "I was just trying to be nice to him," she told him, more angry than hurt.

  "Well, maybe there are some creatures that just can't accept love, no matter how hard a person tries to give it to them."

  Oh, the look she gave him!

  "Yes, well," she said, pulling her hand away and rising quickly, "there seems to be a lot of that going around, doesn't there?"

  "More than your share, I'd say," he said, and watched as the tears that had wet her lashes began to fall.

  CHAPTER 15

  "Where's Charlotte?" Kathryn asked, her steely eyes pinning first Cabot and then Ash himself to the wall. "It is seven, is it not?" She checked the watch that had been pinned to her blouse for longer than he could remember.

  "I haven't seen her since early this morning. We've got Ash's case closing in on us and Davis's appeal, and I don't know what she's up to," Cabot said. "Nasty cut on her hand," he added out of the blue, and joined Kathryn in staring at Ash accusingly.

  "Is she hurt?" Kathryn reached for her cane, ready to go see to the woman who had obviously become a daughter to her.

  "She tried to befriend that deranged lawn ornament you've got out there," he said, pointing toward the window.

  "And it bit the hand that fed it?" Kathryn leaned her cane back against the table edge once again.

  Cabot laughed abruptly and said something about turnabout being fair play. Then he yelled for Charlotte as if she were a tardy child who'd forgotten her time.

  There was no answer.

  "I don't think I've seen her since breakfast myself," Kathryn admitted. "You don't suppose she's sick, do you?" Again she reached for her cane.

  Sick at heart, maybe, he thought to himself, recalling how she looked down by the water, where he'd caught a glimpse of her in the late-afternoon sun. As always, she was without a shawl, and she stood with her arms wrapped around herself, braving the wind to watch two swans drift across the lake. Her hair was blowing behind her, fighting to be free of the bun she had confined it to, and her skirt was flattened to the back of her body and billowed wildly in front of her.

  He could almost imagine her with child, standing there, her skirt pretending it was full of life. He had leaned against the window frame and watched her for several minutes before she sensed him up there, turned, and, shielding her eyes from the sun, sought him out.

  She didn't wave, didn't acknowledge his presence, but turned instead and watched the swans and geese swim off in pairs. He'd considered joining her but thought better of it. It was a sorry state of affairs when two grown people were envying the waterfowl.

  "I'm sure she'll be all right," he reassured Kathryn without conviction. "I mean, she'll be down soon, I'd suspect."

  "Charlotte!" Cabot yelled again, rattling the goblets and Ash's nerves. "Supper!"

  "Supper!" Liberty yelled from what had become his dinner perch, just inside the kitchen doors where he often stole food just as Ros
a was about to serve it. "Come and get it!" he shouted, following the words with a very authentic belch.

  "You're next," Cabot said calmly as he unfolded his napkin and placed it on his lap. "Charlotte! We are not waiting any longer!"

  "I'll just go check on her," his mother said, struggling to push her chair back and escape the confines of the table.

  "I'll go," Ash said, sensing immediately that it was a mistake. The room went silent, but no one tried to stop him and so he had no choice but to leave his napkin on his chair and go after his sweet Charlotte Russe.

  "Charlotte?" he called loudly enough for his mother and brother to hear. "Are you in here?" He poked his nose into the darkened offices and then headed for the stairs. He hoped she'd had the good sense to come in out of the cold. He took the steps two at a time. She couldn't have stayed out at the lake this late. It was dark, for heaven's sake. He raced around the newel post at the landing and hurried to her room. The swans had all found shelter by now. The geese would be gone.

  "Charlotte?" He tapped softly on the closed door. No light came from beneath it. "Are you in there?" Perhaps she'd lain down for a nap and fallen into a deeper sleep than she'd planned. The cold air could do that to a person. Especially one as small and delicate as his Charlotte.

  Not yours, he told himself silently. Not your Charlotte.

  He pushed the door open. Silence and darkness greeted him.

  "Damn it, Charlotte, where are you?" Blood pulsed in his temples and his heart thudded in his chest. Every time she was out of his sight he worried about her. And that was only half as much as he worried when she was around.

  Above him he heard a creaking and he raced to the stairs. A faint light meandered down the stairwell and he hurried up to his room.

  The door was ajar, a cold breeze flickering the lamp on his side table and chilling the sweat that had gathered at his temples.

  "Charlotte?" he called softly, entering his room like a trespasser afraid of discovery. "Charlie Russe?"

  A lump of fur sat on his dresser in front of the mirror, and for a moment he mistook it for Van Gogh. There was something awful about it, treacherous, and he came upon it slowly, his hand poised and ready, but unwilling to examine it. There was no movement, no rhythmic breathing, and he knew the dark thing was dead before he reached his hand out to it. Silkier than fur, finer, smoother, he stroked it once and felt no resistance. The mass had no form, no body.