Kary, Elizabeth (44 page)

The
marriage Leigh had been so apprehensive about on her wedding day had turned out
to be every bit as difficult as she had feared. She and Hayes didn't fight, and
for that Leigh was profoundly thankful, but neither did they seem to be in any
way connected. Hayes was still working long hours at the shipyards, and
sometimes stayed away all night with the excuse of some particularly pressing
project. Leigh was busy too, for when the wounded from a battle arrived, she
stayed at the hospital as long as she was needed.

But
even when they were together, something was missing, something that had been an
integral part of their relationship in the past. When once they had shared
their lives, there was now isolation. Where once there had been satisfying
conversations, there were now uncomfortable silences. And somehow in those
silences an undefined antagonism was clear.

At
first Leigh had thought that when Hayes learned how she had sought out Nathan
Travis to see to his release from the provost marshal, things would be resolved
between them. But in spite of her actions, Hayes seemed determined to maintain
his distance. To him Leigh's reticence in revealing Crawford's accusations had
been betrayal, and he was not a man who easily forgave breaches of either
friendship or loyalty.

Even
the physical side of their relationship had been altered in some subtle way.
Hayes still wanted Leigh and was capable of turning her mindless with desire.
But since they had returned to St. Louis, since Aaron Crawford had arrested
Hayes as a Confederate spy, something elemental was missing even when their
bodies clung together.

Leigh
sighed and tried to turn her thoughts to other matters, but vague,
half-remembered images of Hayes remained. In her mind's eye she could see him
hunched over pages of calculations he had brought home from the shipyards, his
dark hair burnished and his hard look of concentration softened by the glow of
the lamp on the desk beside him. She could recall the lazy, drawling sound of
his voice when she had come home one sultry afternoon to find Hayes and her father
enjoying ice-cold juleps in the shade on the side porch. There was even a
secret pleasure in observing Hayes's morning routine: in smelling the citrus
tang of the shaving soap he slathered over his face, in listening to the rasp
of the straight razor as it moved along his throat, in watching the frown
gather between his brows as he trimmed the edges of the long, full sideburns
that swept across his cheeks. But her delight in those small intimacies was not
enough to make up for the rest. And Leigh despaired for their future, for all
the years they would remain together.

Their
marriage was all she had feared it would be, and Leigh clearly understood the
reasons for her own unhappiness. What she could neither comprehend nor accept
was the keen sense of disappointment that assailed her day after day, and the
envy of Delia and Travis she had experienced before was now tinged with a
bitter sense of failure she could neither dismiss nor deny.

They
crossed the state quickly, getting on the trail before sunup and making camp in
the evening twilight, fighting the heat and dust of the steamy days of the
lingering Missouri summer. By the end of the week when they reached the little
town near the Missouri-Kansas border, exhaustion ran through their veins, thick
and heavy as lead. But at the sight of Brandon sitting on the porch of the
Widow Garland's cottage, pale and thin but obviously improving, Leigh's fatigue
and doubt fell away. Hauling the wagon to a stop, she hardly took time to set
the brake before she was scrambling to the ground. She crossed the yard at a
run and threw herself into Brandon's arms. Clinging together, they wept for all
that had happened since they last had been together and for the wondrous joy of
being reunited.

***

September 15, 1862—St. Louis, Missouri

"I
hope no one saw me coming here," Althea Pennington whispered, brushing
past Aaron Crawford into the suite of rooms he kept in the National Hotel.

"There's
really no danger of that, my dear, as long as you used the servant's
stairs," he assured her, closing the door.

"I
did pass one of the stewards," she told him fretfully.

Aaron
came up behind her and closed his hands around her arms. "You mustn't
worry, Althea. The staff here is really very discreet."

Althea
took a step away. "I'm sorry, Aaron, if I'm being foolish. This is the
first time I've ever done anything like this, and I'm very nervous."

"Of
course you are. And your concern is understandable."

Althea
turned to Aaron, seeking reassurance. "No one will find out about this,
will they? I don't want anything we do to hurt either Horace or Leigh."

Crawford
stroked his hand from her shoulder to waist and pulled Althea into his arms.
"Only the two of us will know, never anyone else. Now, my dearest, would
you like a glass of sherry to calm you before we begin?"

The
auburn-haired woman hesitated for a moment before refusing the drink and saw
the gleam of victory in Crawford's dark eyes.

"Then,
if you'll have no refreshment, kiss me, Althea," he ordered, lowering his
mouth to hers. "Kiss me and put everything else out of your mind."

Althea
tried to do as Aaron asked as his lips drew demandingly on her own. This was
what she wanted, she told herself stubbornly, to find reassurance and
satisfaction once again in a man's arms. It had been so long since Horace had
kissed her, much less made her feel protected and treasured as a woman longed
to be. She needed to see the light of appreciation in a man's eyes; craved the
meaningless little gifts of flowers and candy brought as tokens of affection;
ached for the pretty words that only a gallant would know.

Once
her husband had given her those things as a matter of course. For years his
favors had made up for the sudden flares of temper that erupted between them,
and their disagreements had been softened by his whispered words of love. But
somehow that fine balance between passion and antagonism had been lost, and
Althea's self-confidence with it. If there was any chance that those days could
be recaptured, Althea would not be here with Aaron Crawford. But with wrenching
disappointment, she recognized that they were gone forever. Closing her eyes
more tightly, she tried to blot out the memories of the way things had once
been with the only man she ever loved, the man she had run away to marry.

Determinedly,
she turned to Crawford in a flurry of counterfeit desire, seeking forgetfulness
and respite for her unsatisfied physical hungers. Her lips opened willingly
beneath the onslaught of his kiss as her hands caught in his thick,
silver-dusted hair. This was the way to reassurance and satisfaction, Althea
reasoned. This was the way to bury passions past.

Still
kissing her with fervent desire, Aaron swung an arm beneath her knees and
carried her through the double doors to the adjacent bedchamber.

"Althea,
my dear, I never thought you would be so eager," he said breathlessly,
"but your abandon adds to my delight."

Standing
her before him, Aaron began to remove Althea's clothes: taking the reticule
from her clenched hands, draping her heavily embroidered shawl across a chair,
stripping the gloves from fingers, carefully laying her mauve silk bonnet
aside. Then he turned her from him and began to work the row of fasteners on
the back of her gown.

Althea
stood motionless as his fingers moved over the tiny covered buttons. She could
feel the brush of his knuckle against her nape, the cool air of the bedchamber
on her back as the bodice began to part. She knew this should have been a
moment of great excitement and desire, but instead tremors of guilt were
shuddering along her nerves.

This
was
what she wanted, she insisted silently. This act would still the
restless craving in her blood, this act would end the months of disappointment
and frustration. But even as Aaron brushed feather-light kisses against her
bared flesh, she felt little of the wild anticipation she had known when her
husband had made love to her.

Oh,
Horace, she cried soundlessly. Oh, Horace, how is it that I have come to this?
Tears burned against her down-cast lids when she thought of the man who was her
husband. For all of the years of her marriage, he had been what mattered most,
and even now Horace was the one who claimed her heart. But if that was true,
why was she here in an opulent hotel room with a man she was not sure she
wanted and clearly did not love.

Through
her turmoil, Althea became aware that more of the tiny buttons were being
slipped from their holes, and that the stiff fabric of her bodice had begun to
gape away from the curves of her breasts. In a matter of moments the protection
of the high-necked garment would be gone, and with it the last chance to change
her mind about bedding Aaron Crawford. Did she want to go through with this
assignation? Could she live with herself if she did?

A
sob rose in her throat, and the tears that had been threatening began to spill
down her cheeks. What she had come here to do was clearly impossible, and if
she was to escape the consequences of her actions, she must leave this hotel
room immediately.

Crossing
her arms on her chest to hold the top of her gown in place, Althea stepped away
and turned to face her would-be lover. "I can't do this, Aaron," she
murmured softly and could not seem to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry, more
sorry than you know."

Doubtless
there were things she could say to soften her refusal. She could tell Aaron
that she still found him attractive, that later she would undoubtedly regret
these moments of reticence. If there was any correct or fashionable way to end
an affair, Althea did not know it, and though she searched her mind for
appropriate phrases, there were none to explain her sudden reversal. But no
matter what she said or what he replied in return, she knew she could not allow
Aaron Crawford to make love to her. As she looked up into his face at last, she
was embarrassed, confused and then suddenly afraid of the menacing anger in
Aaron's hard, gray eyes.

Swiftly
she refastened the only buttons she could reach, the highest ones of the
neckline of her gown, and swept the shawl around her shoulders.

"So
you really are going," Crawford snarled as he watched her. "I suppose
I shouldn't be surprised. None of you Southern women have the stomach to submit
to a real man, a man who will treat you as a woman is meant to be treated. You
want to be fawned over, pampered. Well, Althea, if you chose to leave it's your
loss, your cowardice that will rob you of a woman's greatest pleasure."

Heat
rose in Althea's cheeks at Major Crawford's words, and somehow beneath his
hostile glare, she managed to gather up her hat, gloves and reticule. Going
back the way she had come, Althea slipped down the servant's stairs with guilt
and confusion dogging her footsteps. It was only when she was inside the hired
cab that she dared to draw a breath.

But
in spite of her decision to leave Aaron Crawford, in spite of her last-minute
retreat, the ride home alone in the hired carriage was a foretaste of what hell
must be. Guilt at what she had nearly done swept over her in waves, and the
motives for the liaison that had been blissfully obscure on her way to the
National Hotel were suddenly defined in horrendous clarity for Althea to
contemplate.

She
had wanted to hurt Horace by taking a lover, to pay him back for all the times
he had ignored her or been too busy or too angry to see to her feminine needs.
She acknowledged that a woman craved a man's attentions to assure her of his
love, but taking a man like Aaron Crawford to her bed was hardly a fitting
revenge for Horace's simple sins of omission. Horace had never deliberately
hurt her, and even the things he shouted in anger never deserved such a
betrayal.

As
much as she had tried to deny what Aaron Crawford was, Althea knew, and her
shame was worse for knowing. She had been smugly judgmental of the lonely women
who it was said had succumbed to the major's charms, and she was filled with
disgust at how close she had come to being another of his conquests.

Both
Horace and Leigh had warned her about Aaron, but somehow their words had added
to his devilish glamour rather than detracting from it. She had stubbornly
flaunted his friendship in her husband and her daughter's faces, seeking to
seize the independence they had been so unwilling to grant. The terrible irony
was that perhaps today she had unwittingly proved them right in their judgment
of her. She had been weak and pliable, self-centered and shallow, unable to
discern wheat from chaff.

Althea
sighed bleakly and looked out the window of the hired carriage, caught in a
flood of remorse. Her entire life was in disarray: her husband would go to any
lengths to avoid her, her daughter was far more capable that she. And now she
had come very close to breaking the most sacred vow she had ever made, the vow
to cleave to her husband alone. Guilt hung like a stone in her chest, and she
was desperate to find a way to atone for what she had done. Because of their
estrangement, she could no longer make things right with Horace, but she was
desperate to find a way to rebuild her self-respect. Something like Leigh's
good works with the wounded soldiers might absolve her of the sins of indulgence
and vanity she had committed; something she could do to make the lives of
others a little less grim might help her find peace. But what, Althea wondered
as she crept home through the streets of St. Louis, what was there that a woman
born to a life of ease could do to help in a time of such desperate need?