Mittman, Stephanie

by The Courtship

  Kathryn cupped Charlotte's chin and waited until she met her gaze. "Is that what you want? To remain here with Cabot forever?"

  Why was forever so much longer when it involved Cabot than it had been just a moment ago when she'd been thinking of Ash? "Of course," she answered matter-of-factly.

  "I wish I was so sure of what it was I hoped for the future," Kathryn said. "And mine so much shorter, at that."

  Charlotte put her head down on Kathryn's lap and let the older woman stroke her hair. For a time they were silent, and then Kathryn spoke quietly.

  "I love both my children, Charlotte, and I've come to love you, too, almost as if you were my own. Did you know I had two daughters once?" she asked, and continued without waiting for Charlotte to acknowledge the picture she had seen in Ash's room all those weeks ago. "The diphtheria. I still can't talk about it. But somewhere along the line you slipped right into their place and I began to tell you what to wear in much the same way I would have told them, and told you what to eat as I would have fed them. Your dreams became my dreams.

  "And now I look at you and feel my heart ripped and torn and bleeding for all my children. Over and over I remind myself that I am not your mother and that my allegiance must be to my sons. But even that doesn't help me, does it?"

  Charlotte nestled against the woman's lap, noticing how bony Kathryn's thighs felt against her head.

  "Cabot does love you," Kathryn continued. "As best he can. And I've always felt that my loyalty to him had to be unquestionable, unshakable. After all, he is my crippled son. Crippled in body, crippled in spirit. He had to become the man of the family so quickly after the girls and Charles all died. And he did it at the cost of any softness he had in him.

  "But, Charlotte, I've always known he wasn't the only one hurt in that accident. He had the visible scars, but Ashford carried the ones on his soul. And those are so much easier to hide, to deny, especially from a mother who doesn't really want to see what's always been right in front of her nose. I knew, though, knew when he took off to places where I wouldn't see his hurt. And I watched as he went around the world and back without finding relief until he looked at you.

  "Someone's got to lose, Charlotte dear. And I'm damn glad the choice isn't mine."

  Charlotte started at Kathryn's words. "I don't see that there is a choice," she answered, getting to her feet and staring out the window at the carriage house. "I'm married to Cabot and I owe him everything."

  "That debt was paid the first time you made him smile. And a million times over when you made him laugh. You owe him no more than you owe yourself."

  "He made all my dreams come true," Charlotte said, her fingers spread against the glass as if she could reach out and touch the man who was striding across the lawn to his quarters.

  "But Ashford gave you new ones, didn't he?" Kathryn asked, coming up behind her. Charlotte turned quickly, ashamed at having been caught in the act of wishing. "Cabot may have made your childhood dreams come true, but you're not a child anymore, Charlotte, and the dreams Ash can make come true are those of a woman."

  "I don't want to hurt Cabot," Charlotte said, forbidding herself from even imagining what her world would be like if Ash could be in it.

  "No, and neither does Ashford. And so you'll hurt each other by your denials. And Cabot will be hurt anyway. You've a long life ahead of you, God willing. Don't be so quick to throw that particular type of love away."

  "That particular type?"

  "Oh, come now, Charlotte! I am not so old that I don't remember how a man's touch could make the temperature rise fifty degrees in a buggy in January. That memory can keep a woman warm long into her final years.... What's going to keep you warm?"

  ***

  Ash was lying on his back in the darkness when he sensed her coming toward him. He'd had the dream before— heck, he'd found the line that separated dreaming from wishing growing finer every day. He kept his eyes shut tight and imagined the noise the squirrels made was the sound of the carriage-house door opening and shutting. He inhaled deeply and convinced himself it was her scent he smelled. He turned over on the cot and let himself believe that the slight pressure against his thigh where it hung off the bed was caused by her own leg.

  He refused to have the dream again, and forced himself to sit up, throwing the covers off his chest and gulping for a breath of fresh air.

  "You're awake," she said softly, and whatever followed it was drowned out by his groan. If this was a dream he wanted to stay asleep forever. If he opened his eyes and she was gone, he would never allow himself to drift off to sleep again. To see her here was worth the risk. He opened his eyes.

  She was there.

  "Ash?" Her voice quavered. "Should I leave?"

  "That all depends on why you're here," he said, shocked at how gruff his voice came out, how raw his need could sound. "Did you come to discuss my case?"

  "No."

  He took her hand and pulled at her until she sat on the edge of his bed within the curve of his body.

  "The weather?"

  Gently he pulled her with him as he moved back on the small cot. He looped his arm about her legs and pulled them up until she lay against his side.

  "Did you want to talk about Kathryn or Cabot or your woman suffrage?"

  She shook her head against his chest and laid a tiny hand on the side of his neck, where she no doubt felt his blood racing, just as her head must have heard his heart beating a double-time tattoo.

  "Why are you here?" he whispered against her hair while his hands began searching for the answers beneath her nightdress.

  "For this," she admitted, slipping the buttons through their holes until she'd reached nearly to her waist.

  His hands found their own way, his lips traced new paths where no other man had been. She let him do what he would, her only move a bold one in which she lifted his shirt so that his skin would touch her own.

  He rolled onto his back and took her with him so that she rested on the length of his body. Then, after he had raised her slightly so that her lips were within reach of his own, he asked her again, "Why are you here?"

  "So that I'll be warm when I'm old," she said, leaning down and touching her lips to his. She kissed him tentatively at first, and then instinct overcame her and she kissed him with all the passion she had stored within her, all the fire he had stoked with every look he'd ever given her, all the love he had promised her with each of a million silent smiles.

  "What about now? Are you warm now?" he asked, easing her nightdress down over her arms, slipping it over her hands until she was free of it, until it was a puddle of white around her waist. He sat her up on him to glisten in the moonlight like some sprite rising from the sea with her nightclothes all foam around her.

  Her breasts were just the right size and shape for his hands. Nothing could have felt more perfectly made for him. Her legs straddled him and her knees hugged at his hips. Only the blanket between them was saving her from ruin, only her innocence was keeping her fear at bay.

  "Now are you warm?" he asked her again, pulling her down against him and taking the tip of one breast in his mouth, teasing it with his tongue and then tracing a path to the neglected one.

  Her hands roamed his chest and she pulled herself away from him to shimmy down until her face was once again resting on his chest. With her fingers she searched out his own nipple and then caught it between her lips. She sucked ever so gently and rocked against him slowly, while he fought the rising tide, until nothing, not even all he owed his brother, could stop him from insinuating his hand between them and searching out her femininity.

  He would do nothing his brother couldn't do, he decided. Life had been unfair enough to Cabot. And he would take no further advantage. Maybe, he admitted in a haze of want and need, it was a foolish line to draw when his hungry fingers were poised to storm the gates to what long ago should have become the stronghold of his brother's passion.

  It was a game he had always played with his own
mind to allow himself some small pleasure in life that Cabot's condition otherwise denied him. He could enjoy the ocean breeze against his cheeks because Cabot could do the same. He could drink until he puked, he could stay up until dawn, all because, while Cabot might not, still he was able.

  And now Ash could bring this woman to heaven and pretend that she belonged to him for just this moment in time.

  She was silky and soft and, oh, so willing as he touched her gently, trying not to frighten her with his boldness.

  God, how he loved this woman! Not merely her lovely little body, which he wanted, nor her kind, sweet heart, which he needed, but her soul itself, which made his own soul sing with the joy of an innocent six-year-old who had never disobeyed his brother's commands.

  He rolled over with her once again, this time laying her on the cot and crouching above her to keep his weight off her small frame. He kissed her everywhere, letting her moans fill him with a relief he'd never known. He kissed her on into the night, and when he felt her satisfaction as his own, he held her against him and let her joy wash over him like a balm that could soothe his guilt.

  Cabot could have done it all, had he chosen to. Before he'd gotten in so deep, Ash had actually wished his brother would.

  Now it would take the California prison system to keep Ash's hands off his brother's wife.

  And the way things looked, they'd be happy to do the job.

  CHAPTER 20

  "You what?" Ash heard his brother yell from inside his office. He jammed his hands in his pockets to keep from opening the door. What kind of idiot promises the woman he loves that he'll just stay out of it? What kind of man agrees that what had happened between the two of them the night before had to be buried and forgotten for Cabot's sake? "Tell me you're joking, Charlotte."

  "I wish I was," she said more evenly than Ash ever could have. She hadn't even allowed him to say he loved her before she'd made him promise not to breathe a word to Cabot. At the time she could have asked him for the moon and he'd have promised that too. Could a man be held responsible for the promises he made when the woman he loved was crying and vowing the moment they'd shared would never happen again?

  "And what's your excuse?" Cabot demanded. How the hell was she supposed to answer that? Your brother started kissing me and... He shook his head. He reminded himself that he hadn't exactly seduced her, after all. She'd been the one to come to his bed, nuzzle against his side, beg for his warmth.

  But it didn't assuage his guilt any. It was still his fault. All his fault. A woman so starved for affection... a man who knew what a kiss could lead to...

  "There is no excuse," he heard her say. "I mean, I could tell you I was worried about your brother, heartbroken over Davis, horrified with what's happened to Selma. I could tell you that being spat upon and vilified for doing what I believe in, and working day and night, have tied me up in knots that can never be undone. I could tell you that being served Argus for dinner was the last straw. I could tell you a million other things, but you wouldn't understand any of them, would you?"

  "I understand the part about there being no excuse, Charlotte. That I understand quite well. This is that for which the word inexcusable was created."

  Ash had heard enough. If it wasn't something they could put behind them, keep secret and sacred unto themselves, then so be it. But he wouldn't have it made tawdry and cheap. And he wouldn't let her stand there alone and face Cabot's outrage.

  "I don't suppose saying I was sorry would do me any good here," she said. "So I won't bother. I've never condoned this sort of behavior and I've made no secret of it. But you've bullied me and bossed me and I've had to bear it silently time after time."

  He opened the door and stood in the doorway, confused. Time after time? What in hell was she talking about?

  "Decide to finally get out of bed this morning?" Cabot asked, more than a touch of sarcasm tingeing his voice. "Get what you were looking for last night, did you?"

  He bit his tongue rather than say in front of Charlotte the only word that came to mind. Ass. His brother was an ass.

  "I forgot to do something for Cabot down at court," Charlotte said quickly, pleading with her eyes for him to hold his tongue. "And he's rather angry. Not that I blame him with all the work there is to do and only three days left to do it in."

  "And why are there only three days left?" Cabot shouted, pounding his fist on the arm of his chair so hard, it shook his body and made it look as if his legs had moved. "Because instead of doing what she should have been doing, what I told her to do, she was off fighting battles that have no relevance to her own life, and endangering herself in the process. It's not enough I have to worry for her safety, but I've your rattle-pated exploits to make things even worse. I suppose you were off again last night to scour the docks? No one listens to a word I say and then they expect me to make it all work out in the end." He rolled his chair to the bookcase, turned, and rolled back toward the desk. "One thing I asked of you, Charlotte. And you couldn't do even that."

  "Stop yelling, Cabot. Now." Ash took two steps toward the desk, enough to stand between his brother and the man's wife. "One thing you ask of her?" Ash asked and followed it with a sorry laugh. "You ask more of her than any man could expect of ten women, and she—"

  "—gets damn little in return? Is that what you were going to say?" Cabot asked.

  "No. But there's something—" he began, until Charlotte cut him off.

  "We've less than seventy-two hours to get ready for jury selection and prepare a case that will keep an innocent man out of jail. Is this how you two intend to spend it? Like two bull seals at the pier?"

  "What I intend is for you to go down to the courthouse in the morning and get one more day, Charlotte Reynolds! And I expect that you won't come back here without it."

  "So you can spend the day drinking? So you can get so full of Scotch that you pass out in here and leave me to clean up what you can't hold down?"

  Cabot's eyes widened and he shook his head. "You don't know what you're talking about. Arthur—"

  "Arthur! Arthur thinks the sun rises with you and the moon sets when you say so," Charlotte said testily. "Would your mother let him see you compromised?"

  Ash felt, not for the first time, like a stranger in his own house. As if there were rules and rituals that had been kept secret from him and in which he was forbidden to take part. He stood there silent, stupid, watching his brother's marriage unravel.

  "And could I let your mother see to you? Could she get you out of your clothes and into your bed? It's time this ridiculousness stopped. You want your annual oblivion, Cabot, you go to the courthouse and have the trial date changed. And then you can lie in your own vomit if you like. I've got more important things to do."

  "No one asked you to see to me." Cabot rubbed the spokes of his wheels so fast that Ash could hear them sing in the quiet of the room. "I will get drunk this March twenty-second, just as I have gotten drunk every March twenty-second, and not you, not him," he said pointing at Ash, "not my father, not the entire California court system, is going to stop me."

  If they said anything else, Ash didn't hear it.

  Just like tumblers in a safe, each gear fell into place in Ash's head and unlocked that part of his heart that hurt like hell. Closing his eyes, he watched it all happening again. But this time he wasn't six years old. This time he understood what it was about his big brother that had frightened him so much that day on the roof.

  And in the silence the rage that was bottled in his chest boiled over. He took the few steps that separated him from his brother, and with a yank on Cabot's lapels, Ash lifted him from the very chair he'd always held himself responsible for putting Cabot into.

  "You bloody bastard," he said, eye-to-eye with his brother for the first time in their lives. "You were celebrating your birthday, weren't you?" Cabot stared at him, silent, and Ash shook him and shouted into his face. "Weren't you?"

  "Ashford, my God! Put him down," he could hear C
harlotte saying, but she was far away. Years away. Twenty-two years away.

  "All this time," he said, feeling the weight of his brother pulling at his wrists, sagging his shoulders, as the man just hung there, his useless feet at twisted angles, "you let me think it was me, what I did—"

  "I always said it wasn't your fault," Cabot answered back, his hands clutching at Ash's arms to keep from falling. "I always told you not to blame yourself."

  "And Mother? She let me think—"

  "She doesn't know," Cabot said, looking guilty for the first time. "Father didn't think she'd want to know and so he kept it from her. It was an accident no matter how you look at it—to assess blame now..."

  "You're quite a piece of work, Cabot Whittier. Letting me owe you and owe you, all because you couldn't face the truth yourself. So all along you were the one who couldn't take the responsibility you always accused me of running away from." Ash lowered the older man back into his chair without regard for whether his legs were where they ought to be, and stepped back toward the door. "Well, big brother, I've paid my dues and then some. I don't owe you one damn thing anymore. Not even the time of day."

  He could hear Charlotte calling after him but he couldn't stop, not even for her. There was too much anger in him, too much malice. When he claimed her as his own, and he had no doubt he would, he didn't want vengeance crawling into bed with them.

  He heard his mother call out to him, too, from the dining room as he went past the door. But he just kept walking. Out the back door and past the carriage house and right on down to the lake.

  And even then, he walked on, his shoes soft and wet, his feet icy cold. He walked still, turning to see whether he could see the roofline yet, rising up over the carriage-house weather vane. He was up to his chest in the frigid water before he could see the roof in its entirety.

  No ghosts stood on its ridge. No child clung to its ornamental rail.