For Love's Sake (20 page)

“I need one ticket please,” she said as she sat her trunks onto the worn tile floor.

The clerk looked at her and then pointed to the chart of destinations hanging on the wall beside him.

“Um…Gastonia, North Carolina?”

He shook his head. “Charlotte’s as close as we go.”

“Can I get to Gastonia from there? Is there a train?”

“Not any of my business, Miss,” the clerk explained. “I know what comes in here and what goes out–that’s all.”

Laurel sighed. “Alright. Give me Charlotte then.”

Clutching her ticket in her hand, she dragged her luggage to an empty bench.

“Hey!” A harsh voice and a hard shake roused Laurel. “If you’re going to Charlotte, you’d better get!”

She ran as fast as she could onto the platform, hauling her trunks along behind her. Two porters and a half a dozen passengers finally managed to pull her and her luggage on board just as the locomotive grunted out of the station. After this trip, Laurel vowed to never take another train as long as she lived!

The conductor helped her to her seat, which was next to a young gentleman, and across from a nervous mother with a fidgety little boy. At first, Laurel assumed that they were all together, but as the scenery began to fly past, she decided that the three of them were strangers. The woman fussed over the child while the man stared out the window. Laurel thought that if they were going to be traveling together for the next six hours, someone ought to say something.

“It’s about six hundred miles to Charlotte,” she leaned over to her neighbor and said.

The man frowned at her, but then gave her another look over. At second glance, he saw a pretty young woman—obviously wealthy, judging by her crisp linen traveling suit and pearl-drop earrings.

Her neighbor propped his arm up against their shared armrest. “That’s very interesting. I’m going to Charlotte for work. Have you ever been there?”

“Nope. I’ve been to lots of other places though.”

“Oh?”

Laurel beamed. “I’ve just come over from England.”

All the way from England—she must be a real lady! Laurel wondered what he thought about her. It wasn’t every day that somebody met a world traveler!

“Do you always travel alone?” he asked.

“If I can help it. It’s so much more fun just to set off on your own.”

“What does your husband think about that?”

Laurel almost laughed. “Oh, I’m not married.”

“What’s that then?” The man pointed to the diamond ring on her left hand.

“I just thought it was pretty. It doesn’t mean anything.”

The young man ran a fingertip beneath the rim of his stiff white collar.

“Do you have a family?” she inquired.

“No.”

Turning the diamond over and over around her finger, she asked him, “Why not?”

“Never had time, really…but maybe I’ll meet a nice girl down south.”

“Maybe you will.”

He looked over at her. “Maybe I could see
you
some time.”

“Me? I don’t think so.”

“And why not? Would your family disapprove? I bet your father’s a judge or something–probably a big time fella.”

Did he really think all that?
“Daddy’s very strict about men courting me,” she lied.

“I don’t doubt that,” the young man said. “He probably has every man in North Carolina knocking his door down.”

Laurel sank back into her seat and smiled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Christopher’s eyes were bleary and red. After Laurel left, he’d crawled into a bottle of whiskey and still had not found his way out. His mother was so worried about him that she sent for Kate, who arrived a few days later with Constance in tow. He never ate, hardly slept, and rattled around the house like some lost soul in purgatory. Not even a walk out to the duck pond could cheer him up.

He sat among the wild yellow buttercups with Kate on one side and Jonathan on the other. The ground was damp from the recent rain; wet earth seeped into the seat of their clothes. None of them bothered to move, and no one dared to complain. It was the first time Christopher had set foot outside in over two weeks.

“You know, I never realized how much I had grown used to having someone around,” he said. “Everything feels so empty with her gone.”

It was always “
her
”—never “Laurel”. That name was forbidden.

Jonathan placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “It will get easier.”

“Doubtful,” Christopher replied. “I should have never let her leave.”

“You couldn’t make her stay. She didn’t want to be here.”

“She didn’t want to be here because
your wife
ran her off!”

Kate shot an angry glance over at Jonathan. He was not helping. “That’s not his fault, Christopher, and you know it.”

Without bothering to respond, Christopher snapped the stems off some of the little flowers in front of him. A few months ago, he had dreamed of making love in those buttercups. Now he wanted to mow them all down.

“I told her that I loved her,” he confessed.

Kate slipped her hand in his.

“I told her that I
loved
her…”

Stripped of all his pride, his shoulders shook with raw emotion. Sobbing. Unabashed weeping. Kate pulled him into her arms and held him. If only those ladies of London society could see the cold-hearted Lord Christopher Brayles now–finally brought to his knees by a young, unsophisticated, backwater girl!

Yes, if only society could have seen Christopher then, but they never would. They only saw him the same way that he always looked—detached, unapproachable, and wearing a permanent scowl. He went out that London season more than he ever had before. Many could not recall the last time they saw him go to a ball or attend the Derby. That year, everywhere they turned, Lord Christopher Brayles was there, hanging on the fringes of conversation. Of course, there was the mysterious disappearance of his American fiancée…

“She must have finally figured out who he
really
was,” joked one gentleman to his companions.

They laughed over their brandy glasses and glanced in his direction, unaware that he had heard them.

“You really should find a wife as soon as possible,” a contemporary of his father said to Christopher. He had watched him grow from a gangly lad into a bitter man. “Those good looks won’t last, you know. And your personality is quite sour, really leaving much to be desired. Once that handsome face goes, your character is all you’ll have left. Your character and your money. But I would find a wife with her own money…”

“I’m not interested in either,” Christopher said.

“Then if I were you, I would take our hostess to bed as quickly as possible, my boy, for ‘youth is wasted on the young.’ ”

Their hostess was a charming young woman with a very old husband. She made no efforts to conceal her intentions, had no desire to play the game that so many of their set seemed to relish in. She wanted sex. And she wanted it with Christopher.

He contemplated this for the remainder of the evening. The surest way to get over Laurel was to find another lover. If it did not erase her from his mind, perhaps it could cheapen what he had imagined that they shared.

Esmée’s dark curls tumbled down her back as she released them from the diamond comb in her hair. Across her bed lay Lord Christopher Brayles, the firelight flickering orange across his bare skin. She watched him just as surely as he watched her, but at that exact moment,
what was he thinking?

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she said.

“You didn’t.”

Under his cold blue gaze she felt stupid and dull. Whatever he had been looking for in bed with her, he had not found it.

“But you do not want to see me again…”

“I didn’t say that,” he replied.

“You didn’t have to. Christopher, I cannot be what you want until you tell me what that is!”

He rolled over and swung his legs off the edge of the bed. In the firelight, he searched across the carpet for his trousers. There was no point in staying there any longer.

“When did women become so needy? I gave you what you wanted didn’t I?”

Esmée pulled her silk robe over her breasts. “Yes.”

“Good,” he said. “Then I don’t see what you have to complain about.”

Esmée Wolstanton never invited him to bed again, but where she left off, a dozen other women were all too eager to pick up. It did not matter to Christopher who they were, for they all had their own selfish motivations for sleeping with him. Whether they were beautiful young peeresses or country squires’ daughters, they all opened their legs to him, hoping that he would in turn open up his heart.

It was an effort just to remember their names. Christopher spent that entire season going from one bed to another, always searching for release, but never finding it. None of them lingered over his body, none of them kissed his hipbones like Laurel had done—she always said that was her favorite part of him. Laurel had known him as surely as she had known her own self. She could do things to him that always left him crying out her name. Soon, thinking of her became the only way he could reach satisfaction. The presence of the other women was inconsequential.

“Christopher, this has to stop,” Kate said one day. “It isn’t healthy.”

He swirled the whiskey in his glass, then took a long swallow.

“Are you listening, or are you ignoring me like usual?”

“I’m listening…for now.”

His sister jerked the liquor out of his hand. “Damnit, Christopher! Look at yourself! We hardly recognize you anymore. All of London is talking about you, and
none
of it is good.”

He shrugged.

“I never thought I would say this,” Kate continued, “But you need to leave. Leave town! Go somewhere and regroup. Figure out who you are and what you want out of life.”

“I know what I want out of life. That’s the worst of it! I finally know what I want but it is the one thing that I cannot have.”

She handed him back his whiskey, angry with herself for feeling sorry for him again.

Christopher downed his drink in a few swift gulps. “I do think you were right about me needing to leave town. Perhaps I should even leave the country.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Laurel was finally home. She had been gone for seven months, but everything was the same as when she had left it. You would have thought that no time had passed at all. On her new bicycle, she coasted down from Mill Hill. Little clouds of red dirt kicked up in her wake until she reached the well-swept streets of Marlwood Avenue.

As always, there was the druggist’s house on the left, with its beautiful wrap-around porch. Next door, still sat the Widow Price, keeping a watchful eye over the neighborhood from her parlor window. Across the street, a couple rocked their new baby back and forth in the porch swing. When Laurel turned the corner at Doctor Monroe’s yard, that hateful old dog was there, as always, warning her not to come one inch closer.

She pedaled on, past the dry goods store, the diner, and even the hotel. Laurel could never bring herself to look at that stately white building with its cheerful striped awnings and bright pink roses. In one way or another, everything in that town reminded her of Christopher. She thought of that fried chicken lunch, or the first night she slept with him. She looked for his reflection in every shop window, and swore she heard
A Hot Time in the Old Town
coming from the courthouse lawn.

Service was just letting out at the Baptist Church, and Laurel stopped to listen to the bell chime. Everyone filed outside to shake the preacher’s hand. If they noticed her watching, they never looked in her direction. In their eyes, she was beyond redemption—she had sold herself to a man, lived with him in sin. Laurel Graham was a whore just like her mama, and people took bets as to when her belly would start swelling. Lord Christopher had finally had enough of her, it seemed. He cast her out into the streets, and with no other choice, she had come crawling back home.

Laurel didn’t bother trying to correct them.

Of all the faces in the crowd, the only one that met hers was the minister’s son.
Did he feel sorry for her?
Was that pity in his eyes?
She couldn’t tell. Miss Charlotte Dellinger hung on to his coattails, though. Deirdre’s mother said that they intended to get married come next spring. Everybody was getting married. Laurel didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Marriage rarely solved anyone’s problems—added to them was more often the case.

She pushed off with the toe of her boot and kept pedaling. There was no use in standing around and feeling sorry for herself. Laurel needed to make it to Hattie Stroup’s by dinnertime.

Her old gray cat rubbed against her ankles as she set the table. Seeing just a plate, fork, knife, and a glass almost seemed absurd. Where was the fish fork or the wine glasses? Laurel braced both of her hands on the table. She had not cried yet, and she was not going to let herself now.

“I hope you’re not going to be sick,” Hattie said as she shuffled through the doorway.

Laurel swallowed. “No…I’m fine.”

“Good, I didn’t make that banana puddin’ for nothing.”

One thing Laurel missed while she was gone was good southern cooking. Sure, eating caviar and drinking champagne was wonderful, but all that English food started to cause her to grow a second chin. Nobody else confessed to seeing it, but when Laurel looked in the mirror, she knew it was there. It seemed like everyone was too busy staring at her bosom those days, which they all swore had doubled in size since she was gone. She guessed that it was one of those subtle changes no one ever noticed while it was happening, but one day wakes up and suddenly realizes it’s there.

“I’m glad to see you kept your appetite. The best thing that man ever did was feed you,” Hattie said.

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about
him
anymore.”

“Why not? That’s the only thing that’s ever on your mind.”

“Not true,” argued Laurel. “I think of lots of other things.”

“Well, you’d best be thinking that you oughtta have married him. He was such a handsome devil…”

“I don’t see what his looks had to do with anything.”