Alana (14 page)

“I must return to Riverbend tonight. Papers will take too long.”

“But mustn’t you return to Charleston to go to the island?”

“No, Captain Bowers will take us directly from Riverbend to Abington. It’s but a day’s travel by boat.”

“Have you eaten at all today?” Ledoque asked suddenly.

Alana shook her head. “I’m not hungry, and I must see Dr. Lawrence before returning home.”

“Allow me to have some food prepared for you so that you will not have to travel hungry. By the time you’re finished eating, I’ll have a simple agreement ready for you.”

Again, Alana smiled. “Thank you, Charles, for being so kind and understanding.”

Ledoque stood and came around the desk. When he was before her, he reached out and took her hand. He held it firmly as he spoke. “It makes me happy to be of service to you. Wait here; I’ll be right back.”

True to his word, Ledoque returned within two minutes and seated himself on the leather wing chair next to hers. While they waited, he questioned her about several matters that they had discussed previously, and then he drew her out about her plans to start breeding horses again.

After ten minutes, a servant came in, pushing a cart before him. Without orders, the man set the serving cart between Ledoque and Alana and efficiently served the meal.

When they finished and Alana had sipped the last of her wine, another knock sounded.

“Enter,” Ledoque called.

A short man dressed in a high-collared suit entered with a sheaf of papers and handed them obsequiously to Ledoque. When he was gone, Ledoque stood. “Why don’t you sit at my desk? It will be more comfortable for you there.”

With that, he placed the sheaf of papers on the desk, and after Alana sat, he handed her a quill pen.

Alana stared at the papers and then at Ledoque. “So many–how is it possible to have them prepared so quickly?”

Ledoque smiled at her. “These were being prepared for another company that I represent. I had my clerk make certain changes so that the contracts are now in the name of Landow Shipping Company. The second papers are merely your power of attorney so that I may disperse funds for Riverbend when needed,” he explained easily. “It is a standard agreement. In fact, Mr. DuPont himself drew up the original papers.”

“I see,” Alana replied. Because of the fact that he had shown himself worthy of her trust, she barely glanced over the forms. After signing each one where Ledoque pointed, she put the pen down.

“And now, Alana, go to Abington Island. Don’t worry yourself about business matters, for they are in good hands until you return.”

Alana looked at Ledoque. “I will not forget this kindness, Charles. Thank you very, very much.”

Ledoque waved aside her thanks with a lazy gesture and took her hand to his lips. “As I’ve already told you,” he said, not yet releasing her hand, “it is my pleasure.”

When Alana left the office, her thoughts were easier and her mind more settled. But if she had turned around as she left the office, she would have been shocked. Charles Ledoque’s face no longer held the benevolent facade of seconds ago. Replacing his look of concern was a predatory grin that flashed darkly at her back, and his eyes, as they swept upward from her booted feet to the raven crown of her head, glowed with a hunger that permeated to the very core of their dangerous depths.

~~~~~

“It will not be easy, Alana,” Dr. Lawrence stated.

“I understand that,” she replied, her features set in fierce determination, “but you were the one who suggested he be taken someplace where he is not constantly surrounded by reminders of the time before the war.”

“Be that as it may, I also suggested that Jason be admitted to a clinic, where he could be watched over carefully,” the doctor replied.

“Even if Jason would allow that–which you know well enough he won’t-–I don’t think I could. I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to help him regain his perspective on life.”

“If he wants to,” Dr. Lawrence added in a low voice.

“I think he does,” Alana said honestly. “When he isn’t overwhelmed by his drugs or feeling sorry for himself, I can see the man I used to know trying to break through.”

Alana paused in an effort to control her emotions. When she succeeded, she continued, “I have to do this for myself as well as for him.”

Dr. Lawrence nodded his head slowly. “All right, Alana, but as I said, it won’t be easy. You will have to take him completely off the new drug and give him only laudanum. His body and his mind are very used to the stronger opiate. He will have a severe reaction to its loss. He may even become violent.”

“I can take care of him.”

Dr. Lawrence stared at her for a moment. “I think you can. But, remember, he will be in a lot of pain. It won’t be a pleasant sight.”

“Dr. Lawrence,” Alana said in a low voice, “the last ten months of my life have not been pleasant, either.”

The doctor had nothing else to say and, turning from her, he reached into a cabinet and withdrew several dark bottles.

“This will see you through the first month. Take whatever opium he has left and bring only enough to keep him comfortable until you reach the island.”

For fifteen minutes, Alana listened to everything Dr. Lawrence told her, and when he was finished with his instructions, she took her leave of him and returned to the waiting carriage.

Once inside, she leaned wearily back and closed her eyes. Knowing that she had done everything she could to prepare for what now lay ahead, Alana wondered if she could really endure it all. Give me the strength to see this through, she prayed silently as the rumble of wheels on the cobblestones echoed within the carriage.

~~~~~

In his East Battery Street office, Charles Ledoque sat back in his chair and exhaled a cloud of cigar smoke. He was very satisfied with his day’s work and pleased he had not used the extreme methods he and James Allison had discussed.

The important contracts that Landow Shipping owned were now theirs, without the least bit of coercion. Yet, Ledoque thought as he drew on the thick cigar, there was still more that he needed to accomplish.

His goal was no longer just the acquisition of Landow Shipping and the transfer of the Montpelier contracts. No, what he had in mind was even more exciting and would be more re-warding.

When he had visited Riverbend the first time and had come face to face with Alana Landow, he had discovered a woman whose beauty had made him desire her so totally that he vowed he would one day possess her. From the moment his lips had touched her hand in greeting, his desire had roared to life. When he looked into the blueness of her eyes, when he heard the throaty quality of her voice, and when he took in the lushness of her swelling breasts, he could already feel himself being with her.

Yes, Ledoque promised himself, I will possess her so completely that I will be the only person or concern in her life!

At
dusk, two days after Alana’s meeting with Charles Ledoque, she and Jason arrived on Abington Island and moved into the only house on the small yet lovely strip of land three hundred yards off the Carolina coast. Alana’s childhood friend, Annabelle Pomerance, made the house available to them.

Although Jason had been protesting this move ever since Alana had told him of it, she had refused to bend to his will, and with the help of Gabriel, Lorelei, and two other workers, she had brought him to the island.

Alana had left Ben in charge of the plantation, with strict orders to report any problems to Charles Ledoque and to requisition any supplies through him. When Captain Bowers arrived, she knew there would be no turning back.

Leaving Riverbend just after sunrise, Alana had sensed that she was embarking on a new path in her life. Either she’d reached the point where she would cave in completely, giving up on life in much the same way that Jason had, or she would take life by the bootstraps and make it work for her.

After they settled into the house, and everyone except she, Jason, and Lorelei were on their way back to Riverbend, despondency fell over her. But, she chased the feeling away and faced her task with determination.

She allowed Jason to have his opiate that night, but when he fell asleep, she took all the old bottles of medication and destroyed them, replacing them with the ones of diminishing strength that Dr. Lawrence had given her.

When Jason awoke the first morning, he called out for his medication and Alana obediently poured his dosage. After taking it, he looked at her strangely.

“That’s laudanum,” he stated.

“That is correct,” Alana replied tersely.

“I want the other.”

“No, Jason, there is no other.”

Jason’s face twisted with rage when he realized that Alana was not backing down. “Take me back to Riverbend!” he demanded.

Alana shook her head. “No, Jason, not until you’re ready.”

They argued for a long time, but because the pain-dampening effects of the laudanum did not work as well as those of the opium, Jason grew too tired to continue.

Alana stayed near him throughout the first day, and by the time night had fallen, she was exhausted. Lorelei had offered to watch Jason for Alana so that she could sleep, but Alana would not let her, knowing she must stay at his side.

The night was long as Jason’s body reacted to the absence of the opiate medication and to the diminished doses of the laudanum; but the following day was even worse. His upper torso thrashed about, his muscles and tendons knotting in pain, while Alana, her face damp with tears, would not give in to his demands.

For five more days, Jason’s reaction to the loss of his medication was a horrible sight to behold. He became delirious, alternately begging for medicine and asking Alana to put him out of his misery. Alana did neither.

His eyes were unusually vacant, and at times, his breathing was frighteningly shallow. A strange form of cunning developed within his fevered, pain-wracked mind; Alana realized it almost too late.

At one point during the fifth night, Jason called out to Alana. In the low light of a single candle, Alana had bent close to him to hear his words. When she did, his arm snaked out and he grabbed her around her head. His strength seemed to have grown in proportion to his suffering, and as he dragged her against his sweat-drenched body, Alana feared that he might crush her.

“Give me the medicine!” Jason demanded, his voice a coarse growl in her ear.

Alana, fighting to hold back any sign of fear, tried to pull away from his painful grip. “I can’t,” she protested.

“Do it!” he yelled.

“All right,” she cried, her voice breaking convincingly. “Let me loose so I can reach it.”

Alana did not believe he would release her, but, surprisingly, he did. As she jumped quickly away from him, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“In two more hours I will give you your laudanum,” she told him from a safe distance, her chest rising and falling with the strain of her labored breathing.

“Bitch!” he screamed, the veins in his forehead bulging outward. “Merciless rotten bitch!”

Alana turned from him, tears flooding her eyes. But again she forced herself to hold on to the inner strength that was her only salvation, and when she felt herself under its steadying influence, she turned back to Jason.

She did not speak; for once again Jason was no longer aware of his surroundings. His body quivered, and his arms shook. Alana knew he would not harm her again tonight.

True to her word, two hours later Alana gave him a small dose of laudanum. What she didn’t tell him was that it would be the last dose of any medication that he would receive until his mind was finally clear.

And so, with Lorelei’s unflagging devotion and support, she continued to live through the days and nights with hardly any sleep. Only her strong will kept her fighting for both herself and Jason.

The morning of the twelfth day found her dozing in the chair next to Jason’s bed. It was after sunrise when something nagged at her senses, and she opened her eyes.

Looking around, she tried to find out what had disturbed her sleep. When she looked at Jason, she realized what it was.

His breathing was calm, the muscles of his neck, arms, and shoulders no longer knotted with his reaction to the loss of medication. When she looked at his face, she saw that his gray eyes were open and that he was gazing at her in a way she’d never expected to see again.

She rose hesitantly and started toward him. When she reached the side of the bed, she saw he was smiling. “Jason,” she whispered.

“I feel like I’ve been through another war,” he said in the husky croak that was all that remained of his voice.

“You have,” she whispered.

“I–I can’t remember the last time my mind was this clear.”

“The pain?” Alana asked. Her own guilt at causing him so much suffering mingled with her happiness at seeing his eyes open and filled with intelligence.

“It’s not too bad right now. Alana,” he said earnestly, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you this past year.”

Alana shook her head fiercely. “We will never discuss that, Jason. It’s over.” Then she wisely changed the subject. “Hungry?”

Jason shook his head. “Thirsty,” he replied, “and tired. I feel as though I haven’t slept in a month.”

Alana bent down and brushed her lips across Jason’s. When she stood, she could not hide the emotions that were on her face. “I’ll get you some water,” she told him.

“No, send Lorelei. You need some rest. Alana, I may have been half crazy—more than half crazy—but I was always aware that you were here. That’s what helped me through it all. I–I just wanted you to know that.”

Alana bobbed her head, afraid to trust her voice. When she turned to leave the bedroom, she found Lorelei already coming toward her with a tray. On it was a glass of water and bowl of broth. Then Alana knew that Lorelei had heard everything.

“You go and get yourself some fresh air, Alana chile’,” she whispered. “Den some sleep. I be takin’ care of Master Jason dismornin’.”

Alana smiled gratefully at her. “Thank you, Lorelei. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Don’ be tryin’ to give me any credit for makin’ Master Jason whole agin’. You be de one, de only one who coulda done dat. It be your strength and your love dat do it, nothin’ else, chile’, nothin’ else.” With that, Lorelei went into the bedroom.

Outside, Alana breathed the warm salt air. Seagulls wheeled and cried high above her. The sun burned through the overcast sky to reach toward the earth for the first time in a week.

As Alana walked toward the white sandy beach, she was unaware of the tears that spilled from her eyes. All she knew was that Jason had survived and that a spark of hope was again alive within her breast, brought out by the way he had looked at her and by the way he had spoken.

When she had stood beside him, she’d glimpsed the Jason of her past, and in that moment she found herself once again seeing the future she had so painfully believed lost forever. Now, as Alana looked up at the sky and saw the wheeling gulls, her spirit soared with them. For the first time in almost a year, she was looking forward to the future.

~~~~~

“Are you sure, son?” asked the whiskered prospector, squinting up at Rafe Montgomery. The weathered lines of his face ran everywhere in a pattern of age-old wear from a life spent beneath the hot desert sun.

“I’m sure, Caleb,” Rafe stated.

“Well, Rafe, I’ll sure miss you, but I’m glad we found each other when we did.”

Rafe nodded his head slowly, his mouth set in a tight line. “I owe you a lot, Caleb, more than I’ll ever be able to repay.”

“Shee-yit, son, you already repaid me. You believed in me,” the old prospector said as he turned and gestured toward the side of the hill and the excavation site in its base. “I’ve been out here thirty-five years and I’ve never hit anything except a few panned-out veins. Tell you the truth, though I always dreamed about it, I never expected to strike the mother lode. Must be your joining up with me that changed my luck.”

Rafe finally smiled. Twisting in the saddle, he glanced back at the three heavily loaded mules. Each carried a hundred and fifty pounds of pure gold ore–and that was but a scratch in the surface of Rafe and Caleb’s mine.

“Just you make sure that them supplies and men are on their way, you hear?”

“I hear, Caleb. Don’t you worry. I made sure about that last week. They’ll be here in a few more days, mining supplies and all.”

“Well then, son, I guess you best be getting on now, instead of us sitting around and jabbering like a couple of fools.”

“I guess so,” Rafe agreed. But he did not spur his horse forward; instead he spoke again. “Caleb, I’ll be setting up the mining company office in San Francisco the way we agreed. It will be staffed with people I trust, who will run the business while I do what I have to. You just make sure the ore is mined. In about three months, you take yourself the hell out of here and come to San Francisco. You understand that, old man?”

“I ain’t that old that I don’t understand, Rafe. Not yet anyhow,” Caleb Magee stated proudly.

“If I’m not in San Francisco, I’ll leave word where I can be reached.”

“You do that, son. And Rafe–take care of yourself. Those people you told me about won’t take kindly to your plans.”

“I hope not,” Rafe stated with another smile–but this smile held no warmth–only a promise of vengeance.

With a final wave of his hand, Rafe prodded his horse. As he started off, the three mules followed behind. Twenty minutes later, the mine was lost from sight as Rafe negotiated the slopes that led to lower ground, toward the civilization he had seen only twice in the past six months.

Settling back in the saddle, Rafe relaxed as he moved absently with the pace of the horse. He had a three-day ride to the mining town where he would deposit the gold and collect a bank draft that he estimated would total over two hundred thousand dollars.

With part of that he would establish the Magee and Montgomery Mining Company, and with the rest he would seek out the people who had destroyed everything that had once been his.

Feeling a dark cloud settle over him, Rafe thought back to when he’d first returned to San Francisco and had made his terrible and heartbreaking discoveries.

After the Angelina had docked in New Orleans, Rafe had purchased two stout geldings and started his westward trip to California. It had taken him six weeks, and the death of one horse in New Mexico, to reach San Francisco. When he had, he’d almost lost his will to live.

He’d ridden directly to his home, situated on a high hill that overlooked most of the city. When he’d stopped before the impressive stone gate, the sight that greeted his eyes had tom him apart.

Beyond the white stones of the fence, nothing remained of what had once been a large mansion except a few charred timbers. Opening the gate, Rafe had walked his horse onto the grounds and had stared at the destruction all around him.

Tears had flowed unashamedly down his cheeks at his loss. But the fear that his sister might have been caught in the fire galvanized his body into action.

He had mounted his horse and left the property, riding as fast as he could on the crowded cobblestone streets. Eight minutes later he was at the waterfront, moving toward the docks and the office building of the Montgomery Shipping Company.

But when he arrived, another devastating sight was before him. The sign of the Montgomery Shipping Company, which had hung for forty years, was gone; in its place was another sign that declared that the building held the offices of the Pacific Oriental Shipping Company and that its agents were Murdock and Caruthers, Importers.

Anger had rushed through him at this sight, but a small vestige of self-control had stopped him from charging into the building. He had realized then that the treachery that had befallen him during the war was connected to the building before him, and that knowledge had helped to stay his anger and lend caution to his mind.

Hating himself for not going inside, Rafe had turned his horse. At the waterfront, he’d seen one of his old ships sitting at anchor in the bay. Squinting, he’d looked at the mainmast and seen that the Montgomery flag no longer resided in its rightful place.