Courting Susannah (25 page)

Susannah felt ill. It would have been a comfort to believe Ethan was mistaken, but she knew he wasn't. There had been something fragile in Julia, something brittle. She had been capable of wicked mischief, even cruelty, when moved to anger or jealousy. Once, when an abandoned kitten had found its way to St. Martha's and adopted Susannah, Julia had set about winning the animal's devotion for herself, cooing to it, stroking it, giving it cream and bits of fish. Later, the kitten had fallen ill and died. Just as well, Julia had said. She'd been tired of looking after the creature anyway.

Now, a surge of resentment swept through Susannah, and she felt silly for the intensity, the terrible magnitude of it. She hadn't thought about that incident in years, but Ethan's words had brought the memory back with all the immediacy of a slap across the face, and she had not had time to brace herself against it.

Susannah stood. “I'd better be getting back to the party,” she said, smoothing her skirts. Julia's skirts.

Julia's house, Julia's husband, Julia's baby. Would there never be anything, anyone, to belong only to her?

Chapter 12

T
he ring was quite modest, really, just a simple band, a narrow circle of gold studded with tiny, glittering stones. And yet it was the most breathtaking thing Susannah had ever seen.

Aubrey took her aside, in the midst of the dancing, to offer it.

There, behind a potted palm that Maisie had dragged in from the main parlor, he put the same question to her as before, but this time he spoke only with his eyes.
Will you marry me, Susannah?

She looked at the ring, then at his face, remembering what Ethan had said regarding the dangers of waiting too long for love. Perhaps he was right; perhaps love was something that could be nurtured and cultivated. She swallowed hard. “It's—it's not really proper, is it? Our getting married, so soon after—after Julia?”

“Whatever Julia and I shared was over long before she died,” he said. His voice was low, but he did not seem concerned that others might overhear their conversation. “You'll be happy with me, Susannah. I promise you that.”

Her friend hadn't been content, she reflected, for she was possessed of a logical turn of mind, generally speaking. On the other hand, Julia had been—well—
Julia
. She drew a deep breath. “When would—when would this marriage take place?” she asked, and the calm sound of her voice surprised her, for inside she was in a whirling tizzy. “If indeed it
does
take place, I mean.”

His face revealed none of what he was feeling. If, for that matter, he happened to be feeling anything at all. The matter of matrimony was mostly one of practicality, as far as he was concerned; he'd made that quite clear from the beginning. As attractive as Aubrey was, in the spiritual and intellectual senses as well as the physical one, and as wealthy, he was for all intents and purposes just another lonely Seattle man. Like Mr. Zacharias and the other members of the parade of suitors posing as aspiring musicians. Her heart softened a little, despite the discouragement this logic caused her, for she certainly knew what it was to long for companionship and tenderness.

“Why, Aubrey?” she asked, honestly puzzled. “Why would you choose me?”

He had taken her hand in his, and he was poised to slide the ring onto the appropriate finger. “I've told you. Because I think you're beautiful. Because it's obvious that you care deeply for Victoria.” He paused and sighed mightily. “Because sometimes I think if I have to lie alone in that bed for just one more night, I'm going to go mad.”

The mention of his bed was sobering. Susannah, after all, was a virgin. Except for her own turbulent imaginings and the few hints and tidbits Julia had passed along over the years, she knew nothing about matters of intimacy. Color surged up her neck to pulse in her face. “You don't understand. I've never—I've never been with a man before. In—in that way, I mean.” She whispered this last, since some of the other dancers were beginning to squint and peer as they passed the potted
palm. She would die of mortification if anyone overheard this most private of conversations.

“And you don't have to be intimate with me. Not before you're ready, in any case.” He looked and sounded sincere, very unlike the man Julia had painted as such a scoundrel over the last months of her life. Was he speaking the truth, or was he simply another deceitful charmer?

She stared at him after a few moments of closethroated misery. “But you said we would be sharing a bed.”

“We would. But I won't force you, Susannah. That's another promise, one you can be sure I'll keep.” He sighed once more, and the sound gave her an odd sense of comfort, though she could not have said why. “At whatever cost.”

Susannah was once again stricken to silence, and this state of affairs lasted for some moments. She searched her mind and heart desperately for the proper words. When she did speak, it was in a rush of impulse. “Yes. If you'll give me time, then—yes.”

He smiled, kissed her forehead, and slid the ring onto her finger. “Then we have an agreement,” he said.

It unsettled Susannah a little, his referring to their engagement as an agreement, but she supposed she should have expected him to use formal terms. After all, he considered their marriage to be a business arrangement, nothing more. Whatever might be happening within her own heart and spirit, she must not forget the truth of the matter. This was not a romantic match.

“We have an agreement,” she said, and immediately wondered when she had become so reckless. The day she boarded the train in Boston to travel all the way to rough-and-tumble Seattle, she decided. That was when she had begun to change. Or was it even earlier, during
the first part of Julia's marriage, when she'd written such eloquent letters, brimming with the joys of love? Perhaps it had been then that Susannah's wistfulness had deepened into yearning.

Aubrey gave her his arm. “Smile a lot,” he instructed her in a pleasant undertone. “I want people to think you're happy about this.”

She
was
happy, truly so, she realized, and in spite of everything. But it would have been too humiliating to admit as much, since he did not share her devotion. She laid a hand on his forearm and raised her chin. No one, she determined, then and there, would ever know by her demeanor that she was the lover but not the beloved. She set her chin at a triumphant angle.

Aubrey swept her onto the dance floor, and the other guests cleared the way for them, smiling. It was as though the beams of a radiant sun were pouring through the roof of that splendid house on that cold autumn night, setting them and them alone ablaze with a golden aura. Susannah felt the warmth of it settling deep, settling forever, into her very bones.

When the music stopped, Susannah was breathless and flushed and happier than she'd ever been before. It seemed so easy then to push thoughts of Julia to the back of her mind.

Aubrey held her left hand in his and raised it for all to see. The engagement ring glittered in the flickering, merry light of the gas lamps. “Much to my delight,” he said in a clear voice that carried into every corner of the ballroom, “Miss McKittrick has just agreed to become my wife.”

There was a startled pause, or so it seemed to Susannah, then came a spattering of tepid applause, followed by exuberant shouts and whistles of congratulation. Some of the women glared at her from behind painted fans—perhaps they intended to import plain daughters
and sisters, aunts and nieces, ripe for the marriage market, to Seattle and had chosen Aubrey, prosperous widower that he was, as a prime candidate for the role of bridegroom. It was the men who showed generous enthusiasm, who came forward first, grumbling goodnaturedly even as they offered their felicitations, punching Aubrey in the shoulder or pumping his hand. Maisie, breathless with dancing and beaming at all the attention she'd received, hurried over to hug her.

“I checked on Victoria a little while ago,” she confided. “That girl Mr. Fairgrieve brought in is lookin' out for her just fine.”

Susannah, who had already visited Victoria several times herself, knew the child was fine. Distracted, she hoped the announcement of impending matrimony would not cut too deeply into her growing clientele of piano students. Marriage or no marriage, she still hoped to earn her own funds and establish some semblance of independence.

She pressed the back of one hand briefly to her forehead, more than a little dizzy. She had agreed to marry a man she barely knew, she marveled. One who had made her closest friend wretchedly unhappy, who had stated frankly that he did not believe in romantic love, let alone feel it for her, Susannah. She wanted very much to sit down, but that was not to be.

The band took up again, playing an energetic tune, and once again Susannah was in Aubrey's arms, spinning round and round. She might have collapsed if he hadn't been holding her so tightly, but, as it was, her feet barely touched the floor, and she felt as though she were dancing on clouds spun of sunshine and silk.

He waltzed with Susannah until there could be no question of his devotion to her and then slipped out
into the wintry garden to enjoy a cheroot. Since her arrival, smoking indoors had been tacitly forbidden.

“Do you love her?” The voice was Ethan's. No need to turn around and look to know that. So Aubrey remained where he was, leaning a little, with one shoulder braced against the cold stone wall of his house. It was, he reflected, a mausoleum of a place, a giant crypt. Or, at least, it had been, until Susannah.

“No,” he answered. With Ethan, he was usually blunt.

Ethan stood beside him. In the dim, icy light of the moon, Aubrey saw that his younger brother's jawline was hard with irritation. “Then you ought to let her go. She deserves better. She's a woman, with thoughts and hopes and feelings, not some pretty toy.”

Aubrey gave a dry chuckle, though he wasn't in the least amused. “My brother, the poet. If you believe in love, why don't you find yourself a woman and start a family? Su Lin's gone, and things probably wouldn't have worked out between the two of you anyway.”

The look in Ethan's eyes was hot enough to melt that wintry moon, and Aubrey braced himself to block a punch.

“Damn you, Aubrey, you don't know a blessed thing about how it was with Su Lin and me. I
loved
her. I would have died for her. Unlike you, I can't just pick out another woman and go on as if nothing had happened!”

For a moment, the silence between them was charged. Ethan knotted his fists, unknotted them again, flexing his fingers.

“Is that what you think I'm doing? Going on as if nothing had happened?” Aubrey asked, flinging his cheroot aside into the frosty grass. “Believe me, brother, a night doesn't go by that I don't break out in a cold sweat, thinking it might be like it was with Julia. I'd
sooner put a gun to my head than go through that again!”

“Then you're a damn coward,” Ethan said, keeping his voice low. “Susannah cares for you. Anybody with two eyes could see that at a glance. Anybody, that is, except you. And the hell of it is, you could care for her, too, if you were willing to take the risk.”

Aubrey stared at his brother, amazed and stung to a low, vibrant fury. “Listen to yourself, little brother. I don't see
you
taking any risks. You're stuck like a mule in a mudhole, and you're not even trying to free yourself.”

Ethan looked away and sighed. “I shouldn't have let Su Lin go—if I'd insisted—”

Aubrey took his brother's shoulders in a hard grip. “There was nothing you could do,” he said. “The way you explained it to me, Su Lin went back to China for a lot of reasons—many of them you'll never understand. She's another man's wife. It's over, Ethan.”

The expression in Ethan's eyes was bleak. Distant. “Why didn't I fight for her?”

“Maybe you knew, down deep, that it wouldn't have been good for either of you. Right or wrong, people are still real backward when it comes to things like that.”

Ethan drew a snuffling breath and looked away for a moment. “I've been mourning her so long,” he said. “It's as if she'd died.” Then he shook Aubrey's hand, meeting his gaze squarely. “But damned if you aren't right. It's over.” He smiled. “Congratulations on your engagement, brother. For your sake, I hope you know how lucky you are.” With that, he took his leave, and Aubrey stood watching until he was out of sight.

Maybe, he thought, it was time both of them moved on, himself
and
Ethan. He'd been stuck for a long while himself, mired in regret, in anger, in guilt.

Tilting his head back, Aubrey searched the frigid,
star-strewn sky, for what he did not know. Then he returned to the engagement party.

She was dancing with John Hollister, and, at the first sight of them together, Susannah smiling, flushed and bright-eyed, up into the Pinkerton man's benign face, he felt a stab of something primal, something territorial. He was still grappling with this most elemental emotion when a slender, bejeweled hand came to rest on his forearm.