Upon a Midnight Clear

by Jude Deveraux

  Immediately, Kathryn could feel the blood rushing to her face as she glanced up at the man who was staring at her in consternation, as though he were puzzled by something.

  Nervously, Kathryn glanced at her son, who was glaring at her—and how could she blame him? She'd just acted—and reacted—completely out of character.

  Behind Jeremy was a boy who appeared to be about the same age. They were nearly the same height, but the other boy was large-framed whereas Jeremy was of a wiry build like his father's family. The other boy had sun-streaked blond hair and blue eyes, while Jeremy had dark hair and eyes.

  "That your mama?" the boy said into Jeremy's ear, but loud enough that nearly everyone nearby could hear. His implication was unmistakable, that Kathryn was not a woman of high morals.

  Jeremy reacted as he had been taught. Pivoting on one foot, he swung around and brought a left uppercut into the boy's chin. And the boy, equally fast and seeming to be equally well trained, hit Jeremy in the eye with a strong right fist.

  In the next second, the boys went tumbling into the dirt, while the crowd, already pleased by the show of a brawl, a stabbing, and a passionate kiss, were now further pleased by the sight of two angry boys trying to murder each other.

  Kathryn's first reaction was to leap onto the boys and pull them apart, but Jeremy weighed almost as much as she did, and together the boys were considerably larger than she was. Obviously the crowd wasn't going to help, so she looked up at the man she'd kissed. As far as she could tell, he hadn't moved a muscle, but was still standing there staring at her, his big blue eyes wide with an expression she couldn't read.

  "Stop them!" she said to him, but he didn't react. "Please stop them," she repeated, then put both her hands on his wide chest.

  Immediately, it was as though a current of lightning surged down her arms, and, as though he were a hot griddle, she pulled her hands away.

  It seemed that he, too, felt the jolt, because he came out of his trance and turned. For a moment he stood blinking down at the boys as they fought and kicked and held on to one another as they rolled.

  Then the man's mind seemed to clear. "What the hell?" he said, then stepped between the boys and pulled them up by the backs of their shirts. When they tried to go for each other with outstretched hands, the man shook the boys as though they were wet puppies.

  "Go home," he said to the blond boy, then released him, and when the boy looked as though he might strike Jeremy again, the man gave him a look that made him retreat. In one last act of defiance, the blond boy stopped by a woman wearing an extraordinary dress of shiny red cloth, took a whiskey bottle out of her arms, and downed half its contents in one swig. With a smirk directed at Jeremy, he shoved the bottle back into the woman's hand, then swaggered off as best he could. Which wasn't easy, since he was limping and one side of his face was swelling rapidly.

  Kathryn ran to her son, pulling him from the man's grasp, and threw her arms around him, kissing his face copiously while she tried to ascertain where he was hurt. "Oh, darling, did that boy hurt you? I'll get you to a doctor and I promise we'll get out of here as soon as possible. Darling—"

  "Mother!" Jeremy said stiffly, very aware of the townspeople watching and laughing at this display of motherly affection. Considering that Jeremy was nearly as tall as his mother, yet she was cooing as though he were three years old, they were quite enjoying the spectacle.

  The blond man came up behind Kathryn, and as he put his arm about her waist he said, "Honey, why don't you—"

  Maybe it was the proprietary way the tall man slipped his arm around Kathryn's waist, or maybe it was his tone of ownership (the very same tone another man had once used with her), but she turned on him, twisting so his arm no longer touched her. "I don't need you or anyone else to tell me how to raise my son."

  "I didn't mean…" the man began, but Kathryn didn't want to hear what he had to say.

  "Could someone show me where the doctor is?" she asked.

  "Take your pick of saloons, honey," called a man.

  With her arm firmly around Jeremy's shoulders, Kathryn led him from the crowd.

  "Mother," Jeremy said plaintively, "will you stop fidgeting? I have told you that I am perfectly all right."

  Using her best handkerchief, she again wiped at her son's cheek. "You do realize that what I said, I said in the heat of the moment. You and I must remain in this town, at least for a while, at least until I can find a way to earn enough money to…" She halted. In the last three hours she had been offered several ways to earn money in this revolting town.

  After she had taken Jeremy from the laughing crowd, she had searched in vain for a doctor. It wasn't until she was at the end of the main street, Eureka, that she came to a stone wall patrolled by armed guards. Looking over the wall at what lay on the other side was like standing in hell and looking at heaven. Across the wall seemed to be a pretty little village complete with a library and a church and several houses with white picket fences and flowers growing in front.

  "Back on your side, sister!" said a burly man with a rifle, glaring at the two of them.

  For a moment, Kathryn's mind was transported back to Ireland and the laws against trespassing on O'Connor land: O'Connor laws, O'Connor punishments.

  When Kathryn was speechless and Jeremy could see the blood rising in her neck, he pulled himself up to his full height and announced that they wanted to see Mr. Cole Jordan.

  "And what's your business with him?" said a second guard, who had come to see what the problem was.

  "My mother is to teach his son," Jeremy said proudly.

  At that the two guards looked at each other and started to laugh. "You?" one said.

  "Jordan told us you were—" He was laughing too hard to finish the sentence.

  "Got any guns on you?"

  "I hardly think so!" Kathryn said, at last recovering her powers of speech.

  "Think we oughta search her?" the first man said, then the other said, "Not unless you want Jordan cuttin' your throat."

  With that pronouncement, the men parted and allowed the two of them to pass, only vaguely pointing the way toward the Jordan house.

  Now, she and Jeremy were standing on the porch outside a large, rambling old house, and she was trying to make both of them presentable.

  "Yes, I understand that we can't leave now. I'm not a child, you know," Jeremy said.

  "You wouldn't have known it this morning. I still can't believe that you attacked that boy like that. Whatever possessed you?"

  "He impugned your honor."

  "Really, Jeremy, this is not the seventeenth century, and you do not have to defend my honor."

  "I wouldn't have had to if you hadn't…" He hesitated as though he still couldn't believe what he'd seen. "If you hadn't kissed that man."

  Since Kathryn had no excuse or even an explanation for her behavior, she thought it best to make no comment. "Now please remember your manners. I want both of us to make a good impression on Mr. Jordan." She took his chin in her hand and looked hard into his eyes. "Remember: We need this job!"

  "Yes, Mother," he said dutifully. "I will do my best, but I hope you give me no further cause to—" The look his mother gave him made him decide not to finish that sentence. One could push Kathryn de Longe only so far, and well he knew her limits.

  Raising her hand, Kathryn knocked, and moments later an elderly man ushered her into a nicely furnished parlor where they were told to wait. Minutes later the man returned and asked Kathryn to follow him to Mr. Jordan's office.

  Once she was alone outside the room, Kathryn hesitated before knocking as she smoothed her hair and straightened her travel-stained garments. She would have liked to change, but what she had on was the best she had. There had never been money for more than one suit of clothing at a time.

  "Come in," said a pleasant-sounding male voice and, smiling, she tucked her little leather portfolio under her arm and opened the door.

  "You!" Two voices spoke in unison, both d
isbelieving. She was staring into the startled blue eyes of the man she'd… Well, that she'd kissed just an hour or so ago. So many thoughts went through Kathryn's mind that she couldn't speak. Would he fire her? Would he, as Jeremy said, "impugn her honor"? He couldn't, she thought—and prayed. He couldn't take this job away from her. She and Jeremy had to have it. And she had to make him understand that she was a respectable woman—all evidence to the contrary.

  The man recovered first. "Look, I can't see you now. I have to interview a teacher for Zach, so you're going to have to come back later. Better yet, give me the name of the house you're working and I'll meet you there later. Right now you have to get out of here." While he was making this extraordinary speech he came around the massive desk, grabbed her arm, and started to usher her out a side door in the room.

  "Unhand me!" Kathryn said in her sternest schoolteacher voice, but it had no effect on the man, so, with a twist, she freed herself and ran back to the middle of the room. In an instant he was beside her, about to grab her again.

  Without thinking what she was doing, she dropped her case, made a leap, and grabbed what looked to be an army sword from where it hung on the wall. "Mr. Jordan, if you touch me again I'll use this on you. I assume you are Cole Jordan, that is."

  For a moment Cole stood staring at her in stunned silence, then his handsome face lit up in amusement. Leaning back against the desk, he folded his arms across his broad chest. "Maybe you should remove the scabbard first," he said, eyes twinkling.

  "All right," she said with disgust, then with what dignity she could muster, she replaced the sword on the hooks in the wall and picked up her case from where it had fallen to the floor. "So I don't know anything about weapons of any sort, I admit it, but then I'm a teacher not a fighter. Nor am I whatever else you think I am." Turning back, she smiled at him. "I think, Mr. Jordan, that you and I got off on a wrong foot. Perhaps we should start again." With her hand outstretched, she took the few steps toward him.

  But Cole did not take her offered hand, and his face went from smiling to a frown. "Where did you hear of this? Who told you I needed a teacher? And who the hell are you?"

  "I'm Kathryn de Longe, and you hired me."

  At that Cole's smile returned. "Oh, I see. So who put you up to this? Henry Brown? Or was it someone else? No, no, don't tell me, it was Lester and that bunch."

  "I really have no idea what you're talking about. You put an ad in the Philadelphia paper, and I answered it. After the exchange of two letters, you hired me."

  "Sure I did," Cole said with a voice dripping sarcasm, then he straightened and walked back around the desk, opened a drawer, and took out a large leather book—a book filled with bank drafts. "How much do you want?"

  "I want what we agreed upon," she said, puzzled. "Mr. Jordan, I really do apologize for this morning, but—"

  "You must be one of the players from Denver. Out-of-work actress, are you? Or just a prostitute with ambition?" He said the last with a slow look up and down her form.

  Kathryn started to count to ten to control her temper, but instead she opened her case, pulled out papers, and began to put them before him on the desk. "Here are your two letters to me, and here are copies of my letters to you stating my qualifications. Here is the contract you sent me, and I believe that is, yes, I do believe that is your signature just above mine." She could not resist some sarcasm of her own, then, suddenly, doubt filled her mind. "Is that your signature? Did you write those letters?"

  For a moment he looked at her in bewilderment, and she could tell by his expression that he had indeed signed the contracts. But then that knowing little smile of his came back. "How did you get these papers?"

  "Through the United States mail service," she said in exasperation. "What is the problem? If you'd tell me what is wrong perhaps I could find a solution."

  At that he opened a desk drawer and withdrew a piece of folded cardboard and tossed it toward her. "Open it," he said. "Go on. I think you should see it since you sent it to me."

  Picking up the folder, she opened it to see a photograph of a stern-looking woman in her fifties, steel gray hair pulled back into a tight knot at the base of her neck. She had narrow eyes, a lipless mouth, and from her expression she had never smiled in her life.

  "Seen that before?" Cole asked.

  "No, should I have seen it?" she asked, putting the folder back onto his desk.

  "That, Mrs. de Longe, or whatever your real name is, is you. Or who you wanted me to believe is you."

  "I can assure you that I sent you a photograph of myself, not of anyone else, and I also sent you a full list of vital statistics, just as you asked for. I lied to you about nothing, not my age, my looks, or the fact that I am a widow with a nine-year-old son who will be living with me."

  "Is this the list you sent?" he asked as he slammed a paper onto the desk.

  As soon as Kathryn saw it she knew it wasn't her writing, for the letters were formed with a sharp angularity that her writing did not have. But when she saw her name at the top of the page, she picked it up and looked at it. According to the paper, Kathryn de Longe was fifty-one years old, five foot nine inches tall, and weighed a hundred and eighty-five pounds. She had never been married, had no dependents, and had taught school for nearly thirty years. Kathryn's mouth dropped open when she saw that all the schools "she" had taught at had been correctional institutions, mostly for "incorrigible" boys, but she'd also worked at a place for women who were "criminally insane."

  With the paper were two testaments from former employers stating that. Miss de Longe could control any boys, no matter how deviant their behavior.

  Kathryn put the pages back down on the desk. "I have never worked with deviants or the insane," she said with a slight curl of her lip. "I was under the impression you wanted a teacher for your son, not a jailer."

  He didn't respond to her barb, but instead picked up one of the pages she had put on his desk. "And is this your true list of qualifications? Miss Satterly's School for Young Ladies and Gentlemen? And what about this?" he said as he began to read. "Miss Kathryn de Longe, aged twenty-six, widowed with a nine-year-old son named Jeremy." He glanced up at her. "Started very young, didn't you? A nine-year-old at twenty-six, that would make you… how old when he was born?"

  Kathryn didn't answer him, but stood straight, her fists clenched at her sides.

  "Seventeen," he said as though he'd struggled for the answer. "Were you married at sixteen? I don't suppose you have your marriage license."

  "Destroyed in a fire," she said automatically, glaring at him.

  "Just what I would have guessed," he said snidely. "Or lost at sea."

  Kathryn moved in a way that she knew would make her corset stays stick into her ribs. She wanted to remind herself of the wanted poster hidden there. Legend was indeed a horrible place, but that was what was so good about it: No one in his right mind would look for her or anyone else here.

  "Mr. Jordan," she said, working to control her growing anger at his implications. "I have no idea how you received another woman's photograph and resume in place of what I sent. All I know is that I have a contract signed by you. The contract guarantees me a job and living accommodation for two years. It further states that if I am not satisfactory, then you will pay me two years' wages in full."

  To her consternation, the man threw back his head and laughed. "So that's the game, is it? Really, you have to tell me who set you up with this. Was it Ned or maybe oP Hog's Breath, as we kids used to call him?"

  "I really have no idea what you are talking about. I would like for you to honor your contract: Either give me the job, or pay me so I can leave this town. One or the other would suit me."

  At that Cole put his hands on the desk and leaned across it toward her, his face close to hers. "Mrs. de Longe, or whatever your name is, and I seriously doubt the 'Mrs.,' there is no honor in that contract. The way I see it, you aren't the person I hired, so I don't have to give you one red cent."

&nb
sp; For a full moment Kathryn's mind went blank. No job, no money. How were she and Jeremy supposed to survive?

  "Now, Mrs. Whatever-your-name-is, I would like for you to leave my office and you can tell whoever's paying you that I wasn't as easily duped as you planned. Although I must say I do like the bait they used," he added with a leering look up and down her tightly corseted body.

  "Mr. Jordan," she said, and her voice was hardly above a whisper. "I must have this job. My son and I have invested everything we have in this, and there are… other considerations."

  "Such as?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

  "I can't say what they are but—"

  She broke off because he began moving the papers on his desk and in the process her letters and the contract fell to the floor. Hurriedly, she bent to pick them up, retrieved her leather portfolio, and began to put the papers inside. Her hands were trembling so much she could hardly tie the string.

  "Do you need a cook?" she whispered.

  "What?" he snapped.

  Drawing herself upright, she swallowed something that could only be her pride. She had dealt with enough people in her life to tell by this man's tone as well as his words that he was not, under any circumstances, going to reconsider his stance. Maybe later she could get him to reconsider, but now she didn't so much as have money for a meal.

  "Do you need a cook?" she asked louder, then had to stand there and bear the way he looked at her, as though he were trying to figure her out.

  After a while a slow smile crept onto his lips, lips that earlier in the day she had enjoyed kissing. "No," he said softly, "I don't need a cook, and I don't need a wife. My son doesn't need a mother, he needs a teacher. And although I do appreciate all the trouble you have gone to to get close to me, I can assure you that the girls in town supply me with all the 'wifely' affection that I can handle." Again he looked her up and down, but this time with lowered eyelids that let her know what was in his mind. "There are other men in town, Miss, ah, Mrs. de Longe. You really don't have to set your cap for the richest man."