Cady felt frozen to her seat. "You mean he didn't go to other orgies at Durra?"
Stacy shook her head vehemently. "There were no more orgies at Durra. Neither Emmett nor Rafe would have allowed it. Oh, Bruno's tried to get Rafe into compromising situations elsewhere, but Rafe would have none of it. If he went to a party that wasn't totally on the up and up, he left immediately, and he ignores his father's attempts to throw that scheming Lee Terris into his lap at every opportunity, too. This is what I tried to tell you when I came to work for you on Rafe's staff, but you didn't want to listen. I'm glad you're listening now. I owe you and Rafe a lot and I'd like to see the two of you happy."
"Thank you, Stacy." Cady smiled at the woman through a mist. She had believed what Bruno had said about Rafe, and she had called Rafe a liar, but Rafe hadn't been lying to her. "And, Stacy, thanks for the little book. If I can, I'm going to ruin Bruno Trabold." She gave the other woman a grim smile. Stacy lifted her water glass. "To justice."
CHAPTER NINE
Cady called Dr. Kellman and asked him to recommend a good obstetrician. Her regular gynecologist no longer took obstetrical cases. When she met Dr. Green, she was a little taken aback by his youthful appearance, but within minutes they had established good rapport.
Cady went home overflowing with goodwill, her purse stuffed with vitamins, her mind's eye already picturing a dark-haired boy with deep blue eyes.
The phone was ringing as she passed the study. Her head was in the clouds when she answered.
"You sound pretty chipper today. Have you got what we want?" Todd's voice brought her back to earth with a crash.
"I told you Rafe won't be stampeded." Cady couldn't keep her voice from shaking.
"No more stalling, Cady. I'll call you back tonight and I'll want a firm answer about when your husband will begin blocking the environmental bill and cooperate on a few other matters." All at once there was harsh amusement in his voice. "Look in your mailbox, Cady. There's a package for you."
Cady didn't want to open the package, but she did. There were more pictures of her, making her gag. She opened the file drawer and pushed them in with the others.
That night at dinner Rafe seemed content to sit with her over coffee. Cady felt flustered by his presence. She needed time to think.
"I'll have my coffee in the library," she said, rising.
"All right. I'll join you." Rafe smiled, then reached for the silver tray.
"There's no need for you to bother," Cady said quickly. Her plan to speak to Trock was rapidly becoming impossible to execute. If he came to the library while Rafe was there, she would just have to put off the man.
"It's no bother." Rafe gestured to her to precede him as he easily held the heavy silver tray.
Cady settled down in one of the overstuffed leather chairs that stood at right angles to the fireplace, watching as Rafe set the tray on the small table between them.
They sat in silence while Cady poured, then handed a cup to Rafe. Still they didn't speak. Cady tried taking deep breaths to calm herself. She took a relieved breath when Rafe set down his cup and went to kneel in front of the fireplace, jabbing at a smoldering log with the poker to coax it to flame.
When the door to the library opened and Trock entered, Cady knew at once that he wasn't aware of Rafe's presence in the room, even though Graf bounded forward to nuzzle his master.
"Mrs. Densmore, I have the pictures with me and I was able to get the recorder from..." He paused, staring at Cady's frozen face.
When Rafe rose to his feet, frowning, Trock took a step backward as though he would retreat. "Trock, come here," Rafe rasped out. "What are you talking about?"
Trock swallowed but said nothing.
Cady stared at Rafe, seeing her whole life sweep down the sewer that Bruno and Todd had created. "He won't answer you because I told him not to discuss this with you." She cleared her throat, her eyes heavy as she focused on her husband.
"Why did you tell him that?" Rafe's voice was gentle, but his eyes had a sapphire glitter.
"Because I'm being blackmailed." Cady coughed the words from her constricted throat.
Rafe let out a deep breath. "So that's it." He turned to Trock. "Come in and close the door." He put out his hand for the things Trock carried.
For a moment it looked as though the taciturn man would resist; then, at a nod from Cady, he relinquished his package.
There was dead silence while Rafe scanned the contents, then walked to the portable tape recorder, snapped in the cassette, and switched the machine on.
Bruno's and Todd's voices were quite clear. Though their words were terse, the meaning was obvious. At the end of the tape, Rafe stared at Trock, then at Cady, his hand fondling the Doberman's head. The pit bull terrier lay quietly at Cady's feet, watching. "I'm not as surprised as you might think, Cady. I've been suspicious of Bruno for quite some time now," he said. Rafe spoke in a relaxed way. He leaned down and took a pencil-slim cheroot from a silver box on the table, then asked Trock if he would like some coffee. The man shook his head.
"There were pictures." Cady bit her lip. "They were going to use them to make me force you to help destroy the environmental bill and other bills that didn't suit them." Her voice had a grainy sound.
"They?" Rafe looked at her through the curl of smoke.
"Bruno... Todd Leacock... I suppose Greeley She sipped the scalding coffee, ignoring the way it burned her throat.
Rafe rolled the cigar between his fingers, then looked at Trock. "Continue what you're doing, but now report back to me as well as to my wife." The man nodded once and left. Rafe tapped the ash from his cheroot. "I take it that the pictures were bad." He sat down facing her again.
"Horrible" Cady choked. ""More came today." She set the cup onto the saucer with a clatter.
Rafe stared at her for long moments. "Get them."
"No."
"Cady, get the pictures."
Feeling catatonic, she rose, went to the file cabinet, unlocked it, took out the two boxes, and held them in her hands. She stared at them, knowing her life was over, that she would go on breathing but she would really be dead.
Rafe was there to lead her back to her chair and push her gently down into it, then remove the boxes from her grasp. He opened them, perused the pictures in both boxes slowly, then replaced the tops and put the boxes on the floor at his feet.
Cady kept her eyes on his face, even though she knew her own was bright red and her insides on fire.
Rafe looked up at her. "That woman has a rather good body, but it isn't quite as good as yours. The photographer should have been more thorough and gotten a woman with a crescent mole under her left nipple." Rafe still looked at her. The muscle under his eye jumped once.
Hope blossomed in Cady. "Rob said I should wait to tell you, that maybe we could take care of it without upsetting you with this whole sordid business."
"You told him? You showed him these pictures?" Rafe's features seemed set in concrete.
Cady felt his anger radiate around the room. "Yes. I called him... because... because I was afraid." How could she tell Rafe of her paralyzing fear of losing him?
"Isn't that what a husband is for?" Rafe spat out the words as though they were poison in his mouth.
"Yes." Misery coursed through Cady.
Rafe took a deep breath. "I'm going to kill Bruno and that Leacock for putting you through this." His voice was so matter-of-fact that Cady was sure she must have misheard him.
Before she could reply, the buzzer on the phone sounded twice, signaling that the call was for her. She lifted the receiver and Rob spoke to her. "Rob, listen"— Cady gulped a breath—"I just talked to Rafe. He knows all about it." Cady looked at her husband as he gestured that he wanted the phone. "Just a moment, Rob."
Cady listened through a fog as the men talked. She was aware that Rafe was talking to Rob about the necessity of getting information on Bruno. All at once she remembered what Stacy had given her at
lunch the day they met. She looked at Rafe, then rose to her feet and went to the filing cabinet, knowing that his eyes were on her every moment. She held the envelope on her lap until Rafe had replaced the receiver, then she handed it to him in silence.
He opened the manila package, lifted the thin pile of papers, and began reading.
Cady watched, agonized, as his color fluctuated from pale gray to brick red. When he finished, his clenching hands threatened to destroy the papers altogether. Cady bit her lip, not interfering.
All at once Rafe seemed to realize what he was doing. His long fingers pressed the papers smooth. "Well, Cady, I guess you've realized what a fool your husband was... is. You said you wouldn't get rid of me until I was three kinds of a jackass. I guess now is the time."
"Are you going to divorce me because of the pictures? They could ruin your career," Cady ventured, feeling shy with him.
"God, no, I'm not going to allow you even to be touched by them. They couldn't wreck my career, Cady. I intend to bring this out in the open and expose Greeley and Trabold and that sleazy louse Leacock. You have nothing to be ashamed of, my love," Rafe said, his face a mask of anger. "No one is going to get away with intimidating you. I promise you that."
"Rafe—" Before she could speak, the phone rang again. This time it was for Rafe.
Cady had the feeling he would be on the phone a long time. Feeling tired and wrung out, she mouthed to Rafe that she was going to bed.
She didn't even bother to shower, settling for a sponge bath and then falling into a druglike sleep.
The next day she struggled awake as though she were fighting her way through miles of black velvet. Her eyes seemed to be glued shut.
"Open your eyes, darling," Rafe whispered. "I have juice for you. Ice-cold orange juice, just the way you like it."
Cady unstuck her eyes, feeling her stomach rise into her throat as Rafe sat down on the edge of the bed and proffered the glass. "Take it away," she said faintly, locking her mouth as she began to gag. "Ohhhh, Rafe, move."
Rafe stared at her as she tried to push him away. Then he placed the glass on the table and swung her out of the bed in one motion, striding to the bathroom as he wrapped her in a robe.
"Put me down. I'm sick," Cady groaned.
"There you are, sweetheart," Rafe crooned, holding her head as she retched.
When she was finished, Rafe stripped off the sweat-soaked robe he had wrapped her in and set her gently in the tub, cushioning her head on the bath pillow, then slipping in beside her to hold her while the rub filled with warm water.
"Were you going to tell me you were pregnant soon, or were you just going to wait and let me notice your figure rounding out?" He smiled down at her. wiping her face with a soft cloth.
"I feel green," Cady moaned, weak and grateful for the muscular body supporting hers. "How did you get out of your clothes so fast?" she asked dully.
"Practice," Rafe soothed, washing her body, his touch gentle.
"Thank you." Cady spoke into his neck.
"For what, love?" Rafe's lips feathered her cheek.
"For taking care of me."
"That's my primary mission in life. Didn't you know that?"
"Nice," Cady muttered as he lifted her, dried her, then carried her back to bed. "I can get up now, Rafe. Really. I'll get dressed and eat breakfast with you."
"No." He left the room in a run.
Before Cady could feel too sorry for herself for being abandoned, Rafe was back, a bed tray in his hands. He grinned at her. Right behind him came Mrs. Lacey with a teapot and a platter of toasted muffins on a tray, and a large jug of orange juice. "I can't eat all that." Cady stared at the tray Rafe set across her lap.
Then Mrs. Lacey brought a table close to the bed and set her things on that. "You mustn't mind the morning sickness, ma'am. It will soon pass." She smiled at them, then closed the door behind her.
Rafe removed his robe and slipped into bed beside her. "You're not going to eat it all. Some of it's for me, love." He kissed her nose, then poured her some fresh juice.
"What about the glass there?" Cady pointed to the juice Rafe had placed on the bedside table when he had taken Cady to the bathroom.
He shrugged. "I'll drink it. After all, we'll be here for a while."
"You have to go to your office." Cady sipped the icy juice, grateful for her settling stomach.
"Nope. I called and said I wouldn't be in today." He grinned at her and tapped his glass against hers. "Nothing so major that it couldn't be put off." He spread raspberry jam on a toasted muffin and fed it to her. He laughed because he had gotten jam on her nose, and leaned down to lick it off. Cady felt her heart flutter like a bird's wings in her chest. If only they could always be so close. "If you don't feel like going to my father's Christmas bash, you don't have to," he offered.
"I want to go. I want to be there when you expose Bruno and Greeley." She cuddled close to her husband, savoring the feel of his arm around her shoulders as he fed her more of the muffin. "I still don't see how you're going to get Todd there."
"I had Stacy call him and say that Bruno wants him there to take pictures. Since Bruno is in New York on a job for Emmett, it was easy. If Emmett hadn't sent Bruno on that errand, I would have dreamed up some other reason for him to be out of town until just before the party. Unless something goes radically wrong, Leacock should show up just about the time Bruno and Greeley are beginning to feel comfortable."
"Aren't you afraid that Bruno will allow the pictures to be made public?" Cady shivered.
Rafe folded her closer to his body, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "You keep forgetting to trust your husband." He caressed her ear with his lips. "A few of my staff and I contacted some other legislators and informed them of what we're up against. When we told them we hoped to get wives of other politicians to let us use their heads to superimpose on the body that's under your head in the photographs Leacock sent you, we were buried in volunteers." He looked down into her aghast face. "I'm not kidding you. We had too many women to use, so we used the most prominent. If Bruno decides to print the pictures he has, then we'll release our pictures and prove what a fraud they are. In fact, Jack Van Orden says that his wife and some of the others feel that we should publicize ours anyway, sort of taking the steam out of any plans Bruno may have in the future. I haven't made up my mind what I'll do yet. I want to talk to all the wives first."
"I don't believe this is happening!" Cady gulped. "You mean the nightmare is over?"
"Almost. We deliver the coup de grace at Durra, at the Christmas party. I'm sure Emmett won't be pleased when he discovers just how crooked his protege is," Rafe grated, his hands clenching on her.
"Your sisters will be furious for exposing him at Durra." Cady shuddered.
Rafe's laughter rumbled under her cheek. "My sisters will be quiet—or their husbands will tell them to shut up. I've talked to both my brothers-in-law, and they're cooperating with me."
"Oh, Rafe, I can't believe it. I feel as though someone has lifted a cement block off my chest." She sighed, happiness making her bold as she kissed his bare chest.
"Cady, love, don't do that," he mumbled into her hair. "I can't make love to you, so..."
Cady leaned back until she was looking up at him. "Who told you that fairy tale? My doctor says that all normal activity is acceptable. I don't think I should take up sky diving, but..." She wriggled against him, liking the feel of his taut flesh against her.
"Am I to take it, Mrs. Densmore, that you consider Iovemaking normal activity?" Rafe's mouth slid down her body, then up to her neck.
"Well, it sure beats jogging," Cady breathed in gasping amusement.
Rafe stroked her, then leaned over to kiss her abdomen. "I should hope so." He stared at the point where his mouth had been. "It's going to be a little honey-haired girl with violet eyes. I know it. God, she'll be beautiful."
"The doctor didn't say anything about twins, and since I have ordered a little boy
with hair the color of dark chocolate..."
"Girl." Rafe fastened his mouth to her breast and her protest became a moan. "Cady, darling, did I tell you that you are more beautiful ill than any other woman in the world is at her best? I can't wait to see you as your pregnancy progresses."
"You'll hate me," Cady wailed, feeling lightheaded at his words. "I'll look like a balloon."
"You'll be perfect." Since Rafe proceeded to show Cady just exactly how perfect he seemed to think her, her wails turned to delighted sighs.
Their loveplay increased until all that could be heard were the whispered sighs of satisfaction. Cady had a feeling that she had just skied down a ninety-degree incline, then floated back to the top.
"Rafe... Rafe, does everyone feel this way?" she muttered, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
His words were lost in her body as they rose together in a spiral of love.
Not once but many times, Rafe brought her to that pinnacle of joy that she knew could only happen with him. He was her love, the very core of her happiness.
"We're lucky," Cady murmured to her husband as she let her hands wander over his body, giggling when she felt a tautened response to her touch.
Rafe nuzzled her abdomen, his tongue teasing her navel. "No one should have the power over another human being that you have over me," he growled softly into her willing flesh, laughing gently when her body responded to the most intimate kiss.
Over and over they ministered to each other with a gentle, powerful passion that swept away all the rough edges of misunderstanding.
"Are we really going to stay in bed all day?" Cady yawned in the aftermath of their love, then poked Rafe in the ribs when he shouted with laughter.
"I think we'd better. I'm wearing you out."
"Not so. I'm wearing you out." She tried to rise.
"We'll get up on one condition. That we go down and swim in the pool, take a sauna, then rest again."
Cady stared up at his laughing face, his body resting on his elbows. "Then it will be dinnertime." She chuckled.
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