Tough Prospect

by Laura Strickland

  The group, with Tessa and Mitch at the rear, entered a room on the left. It should have been a parlor, but Tessa saw rows of cots, bare but for one blanket each, in a chamber as gray and cheerless as a rainy day. Several of the cots were occupied by small children, their wan faces stark against the thin pillows. One tossed restlessly.

  Patricia Carroll asked, “What is the matter with them?”

  “Oh, the usual—cough, fever. They’re always sick.”

  “You have not called a doctor?”

  “Of course not,” Mitch muttered under his breath.

  Mrs. Bains shot a look in his direction before she answered. “I had no funds. I will be able to, now.”

  Another member of the party asked, “Where are the rest of the children? At their lessons?”

  Mrs. Bains hesitated. “I’m afraid not. Most days, they do piece work.”

  “Piece work?”

  “We assemble wooden boxes for a local man who uses them in his business. It’s very simple work, but it does provide a small income.”

  Mrs. Wright asked, “Have you not applied to the city for supplementation?”

  “I have. I was refused.”

  “Why?”

  “I was told we’re not large enough. If I took in more children I might get funding, but I wouldn’t be able to provide adequately for them.”

  “It does not seem, my good woman, you’re providing adequately for them now. Please show us the kitchen.”

  Now grim and silent, Mrs. Bains led on. The kitchen, a dank cave of a place, housed a handful of children struggling to fill a large pot with water from a rusty pump and scrubbing a long, plank table.

  “Say good morning to our visitors, children.”

  “Good morning,” they chorused. Tessa, leaning forward from the shelter of Mitch’s arm to peer at them, decided none looked well. Cautious eyes returned her stare from pinched and chapped faces. Their clothing, though reasonably clean, appeared shockingly shabby.

  “By God,” said Brenda Carroll. “Something must be done.”

  She went on speaking, her ire at the fore, but suddenly Mitch interrupted her. Holding up his hand he growled, “What’s that?”

  His tone was such it caught the attention of children and adults alike. Mrs. Bains turned to him with a look of horror.

  “It’s—” one of the children began.

  “Hush.” Mrs. Bains slapped the girl on the head. “I don’t hear anything.”

  Tessa did. A muffled thumping, it seemed to come from the hallway off the kitchen.

  Mitch spun on his heel, releasing his grasp on Tessa.

  “Mr. Carter,” Mr. Ellison cautioned, but Mitch disregarded him. They stood near the doorway; mere steps took him to what looked like the door of a broom cupboard out in the passage.

  “No, sir—” Mrs. Bains bounded after him.

  Tessa could hear the thumping much more clearly now that they stood in the passage. It most certainly came from the tiny closet. A rusty hook and hasp held the door shut. Tessa saw Mitch’s hands tremble when he reached for them.

  The door swung open with a creak. The dim light from the passage barely reached inside but Tessa’s horrified eyes saw—

  A child. A boy, she thought, crunched into the suffocating, small space with his body bent nearly double and his head tucked down.

  Before she could even draw a breath, Mitch reached inside, lifted the child with careful hands, and set him on the floor of the passage. Everyone surged forward.

  Tessa saw the truth then. Throughout the tour she’d been willing to give Mrs. Bains the benefit of the doubt, assign her the role of struggling housemother with good intentions.

  But the small boy on the floor, surely no more than eight years old, had been shoved into a closet with his hands bound behind his back and a gag tied over his mouth.

  As everyone watched, Mitch gently removed the gag. He loosened the boy’s hands even as the party began to argue with the housemother.

  “How could you, Mrs. Bains?” Mrs. Wright demanded, turning on the woman.

  Mrs. Bains’ face had turned bright red. “That is a very naughty boy. He does nothing but cause trouble and grief. I could not let you see him, could I? What would you think of me?”

  “Better to wonder what we think of you now! Madam, this institution needs to be closed down.”

  “Yes?” Mrs. Bains shrieked. “And then what will happen to these children? Tell me that.”

  Tessa, listening with one ear, watched her husband help the child to stand, ask him a question, and feel him over gently, touching his back with gentle hands.

  He raised his head, and Tessa got a look at his face—eyes burning, lean cheeks drawn tight, mouth hard with anger.

  He stepped up to Mrs. Bains, interrupting her defensive tirade. “This child has been caned.”

  Once more everyone went silent. Except Mrs. Bains. She screeched.

  “Of course he has! I told you he’s a very bad boy and will not obey. What else was I supposed to do?”

  “You might,” Mrs. Wright said indignantly, “try love.”

  “Love? I have no time for love.”

  “So,” Mitch gritted through clenched teeth, “your answer is to whip him and shut him—bound and gagged—into a dark closet?”

  Tessa had never seen Mitch look so dangerous. At that moment, she believed him capable of anything.

  “What if the child had smothered?” Mrs. Wright demanded.

  And Mrs. Bains, all pretense of warmth and caring fled, answered, “It might well have benefitted this world.”

  “I have to get out of here,” Mitch muttered and pushed past everyone in the passageway. With Tessa at his heels, he marched straight outside, where he stood inhaling great breaths of air.

  “Boss, you all right?”

  Marty stood outside the car, looking concerned.

  Ignoring him, Tessa faced her husband and seized his hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was my fault. I never should have asked you to come here with me.”

  He glared at her, and in his eyes she saw—memories. Shadows and old horrors. A flare of pain.

  Never had she imagined seeing the composed and controlled Mitch Carter look this way. The truth tumbled upon her.

  She said, “That happened to you, didn’t it? You were shut—shut in somewhere. Just like that boy.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” As if he convinced himself, he repeated it. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Mitch, what will happen to that boy?”

  “If he’s lucky, he’ll grow up and make something of himself. Then it won’t matter for him, either.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Tessa lay in her bed with but a single light burning in the room against the darkness, wondering if her husband would come to her this night.

  He’d been quiet following their visit to The Waifs, far too quiet. Upon their return home, he’d shut himself into his office, saying he had business matters to which he must attend, and had not emerged.

  Not even for supper, which was a meal they almost always shared.

  He’d still been in his office behind the closed door when Tessa came up to bed. Where she tossed and turned—and waited.

  That had been hours ago. He must have come up to his room by now. But not to her, at least not yet.

  She lay on top of the coverlet, wearing one of her most fetching negligees, while stroking Valerie’s smooth hide. She thought again of the words her husband had spoken to her outside The Waifs, that once grown, what one suffered as a child no longer mattered.

  She didn’t believe it. She, who’d experienced life in her father’s household, knew it for a lie. How much worse for a man who’d lived through what that young boy today had.

  Tessa had seen the look in that boy’s eyes when Mitch pulled him out of the closet. She’d also seen the look in Mitch’s eyes.

  For the first time ever, Mitch Carter—master of keeping his composure and schooling his
emotions—had appeared vulnerable.

  And it changed how she felt about him. Maybe, she reflected as she stroked Valerie and the little dog wiggled closer, because she felt responsible for what had happened today. She should have thought, before she asked, about what a visit to such a place would do to Mitch.

  He might be tough, but he wasn’t made of stone.

  Now she had an overwhelming impulse to make that blunder up to him, to get close to him in his vulnerability, and maybe even mend his hurt.

  Here, in her bed.

  But the minutes continued to tick by on the white enameled clock that sat on her dresser. The little dog went to sleep, or shut herself down. When the hands on the clock read one a.m. she sighed and pushed herself up in the bed.

  It had been a long day. She should crawl in under the covers beside Valerie and go to sleep. But that wouldn’t ease the longing inside.

  She wanted Mitch, his touch, and the taste of him. She could go to him. But she’d never done that before—all their clandestine meetings had taken place here, on her territory.

  She’d never realized what courage it must have taken for him to come here. What if she went to him and he rejected her?

  She would go away humiliated. And aching for him.

  Or she might make him an offer he could not turn down.

  She slipped from the bed, turned off the bedside light, and padded on bare feet from her room down the hallway.

  ****

  Whiskey never helped. When Mitch had nights like this—ones crammed so full of dark memories he had no hope of sleep—drinking only seemed to make it more painful. The liquor unleashed the emotions he always strove so hard to contain.

  They’d been allowed far too much freedom already, today.

  But he didn’t think he’d sleep this night. Finding that boy crammed into the closet, trussed and able to do no more than thump his feet, had brought far too much back. He’d wanted to strangle that woman, Bains.

  He wanted to go out and kill Fink, now.

  When he’d felt the welts under the boy’s shabby shirt, his anger had nearly exploded. He knew how it felt, being strapped and shut away into the dark—uncomforted, unwanted, unloved.

  It had made him tough. At least he thought it had. So why did he lie alone in the dark now, just like the boy he had been?

  He needed to do something about that place, make sure Ellison reported that woman, maybe get that boy out of there and—

  He broke off when his ears caught a whisper of sound. The knob on his door turned and the door swished open. In the dim light from the hallway, he beheld a vision.

  She wore a pale-colored gown rife with lace that swirled all around her body, and her hair streamed loose, tumbling down across her shoulders in a riot of auburn curls. The breath caught abruptly in Mitch’s throat.

  His wife. She had come to him. Unprecedented.

  What could it mean?

  “Tessa?” His voice sounded hoarse in his own ears. “Is something wrong?”

  She froze, her hand still on the doorknob.

  Don’t go, he begged her silently. Please.

  She seemed to hesitate where she stood, on her bare feet. Then she glided in and shut the door behind her.

  Darkness ensued. Mitch wanted to reach for the light, wanted with all his being to see her, but he scarcely believed she was here and feared he might spook her.

  Instead, he lay where he was, barely breathing, and tracked her by sound alone as she approached the bed.

  “Mitch?”

  “Yes?”

  “I—” She hesitated again, almost within his reach. “I couldn’t sleep. After today.”

  “Neither could I.” His heart now pounded so hard in his ears, he didn’t suppose he’d ever be able to sleep again.

  Her voice came once more, still closer, and breathy. “I didn’t want to be alone. I—I thought…rather, I expected you’d perhaps come to me.”

  Emotions speared through him and spun his head. She didn’t say she hoped he’d come. Yet he heard the word anyway.

  “Tessa, I thought you’d be tired, and I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome.”

  She reached the bed; he felt her knee bump the side of his mattress. She stood there, and he cursed inwardly that he couldn’t see what lay in her eyes.

  Before she could comment, he asked, “Tessa, what do you want?”

  Her only reply came in a whisper of sound. Mitch had very good hearing, honed by the instinct to survive. She, apparently, had very good night vision, for she reached out and unerringly captured his hand, lifted and guided it.

  To her breast.

  The sound he’d heard must have been her shrugging the silky bed gown from her shoulders, for her breast lay bare, a warm and tempting mound of softness. Mitch tensed where he lay, stiffened from head to foot, and splayed his fingers, palm against her skin, his delight like pain.

  She didn’t need to say. Oh, no, she did not.

  “Tessa,” he groaned.

  “Mitch.”

  At least she knew his name. She moved still closer, putting a knee on the mattress, and bent to cradle his face between her hands. With no further words, she guided his mouth to her naked breast.

  No need to ask questions then. He heard her breath catch, there in the velvety dark, as they connected, felt her skin ripple at his touch before she began to melt. Ah, his Tessa always melted so swiftly for him.

  His Tessa.

  He could give her what she’d come for, what she needed. All of it.

  He suckled her there, head against the pillow while she bent to him, sight unseen. When he planted both hands at her waist and tried to lift her onto the bed, though, she pulled away a fraction.

  “Wait.”

  No. he couldn’t bear it if she left him now.

  But her fingers moved in the darkness—he could see the faintest outline of her and saw when she gave a twitch that caused the gown to fall all the way off and pool at her feet. She stood clothed only in that glorious hair.

  “There,” she whispered.

  He would have lifted her then, but she climbed into the bed, climbed up onto him, and lay with her mouth just above his mouth.

  He couldn’t breathe, but not for her weight. She weighed nothing, to contain his world. At that moment, the possibilities seemed endless. More suckling? His tongue, his member inside her? He’d offer her all that, and his life if she wanted it.

  For answer she kissed him, the kind of kiss that blasted a man’s nerve endings and left him gasping. He wore very little, never did for sleeping; she’d smashed herself against his bare chest, and it felt wonderful. But that word fell woefully short for description.

  Her tongue plundered his mouth and had him standing below, so hard he knew she must feel it. When she broke the kiss, he could have bellowed in protest.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “For—?”

  “I’m sorry I ever asked you to go to that place with me this morning. It must have been awful for you. I should have thought.”

  “This makes up for it.” He wound his fingers in her hair and brought her mouth back down to his. This time the kiss became a long, leisurely demand.

  One she broke determinedly again.

  “Mitch?”

  He managed a moan in reply.

  “Usually when we’re together, you give me whatever I want. You make sure I get all the pleasure.”

  “Not all of it.” But yes, her sweet pleasure had become his pleasure.

  “It’s going to be different tonight. I’m here for you, understand?”

  At first, he didn’t. Then he felt her lift herself up from him, felt her tongue against his skin, there in the dark. At his throat. Across his shoulder and plowing into the hair on his chest. Her mouth followed a determined trail that led ever downward.

  “Tessa,” he said very hoarsely indeed.

  “Hush.”

  A woman on a mission, she glided her mouth over him, unstoppable. Mitch felt the
tension—that provoked by memory—leave his body even as a new tension curled through his belly, through his balls and every muscle, making him vibrate in anticipation.

  She wouldn’t. They had never before crossed this line. She simply would not.

  He knew she would when he felt her fingers on the buttons of the short pants he wore, his only garment. By then he already lay like a man slain, flat on his back in the bed, arms out flung. She freed him from his confinement and curled her fingers around him as she had before.

  “Does this feel good? As good as when you put your mouth on me?”

  Her voice sounded different, thick with desire. The very sound of it made his member twitch. She put her tongue on him and he nearly rose off the bed. Here, in the quiet dark, he’d found heaven, or it had found him.

  “Yes.”

  “Um?”

  “It feels good.”

  “I want you to feel good tonight. I want to make up for—”

  He’d venture into a thousand orphanages in exchange for this. He’d spend a night back at Carter’s if she asked it of him. He’d give her his heart, his soul.

  She took him in her mouth, tentatively at first, not sure about it. Her mouth, a deep cavern of heat, enfolded him, and he promptly lost his mind.

  She worked her way up and down the length of him, taking him in and out, leaving a trail of wet that cooled where she breathed.

  “Yes. Tessa, oh, God.”

  He didn’t believe in God. Only he might, if she asked it.

  He wound his fingers into her hair and arched his body up into her. She took him deeper and he began to quiver like a man who’d run too far.

  He knew he had excellent control. It had been honed in the very harshest of conditions. But those conditions had never included pleasure.

  Never this.

  It shattered when she lifted her mouth from him and said, “You taste wonderful.”

  “Tessa, oh, God. You’d better stop. I don’t want to release myself into your—” Only he did, more than anything.

  “Why not?” Her voice still sounded thick with arousal.

  “You’ll find it—disgusting.” Women did.

  “I don’t think I will.” She began to lick his thighs, his balls, and then worked her way up the standing length of him again. Just before she took him back into her mouth, before the night exploded and the dark turned bright with stars, she whispered, “I want to please you.”