Memory's Embrace (21 page)

By the time they had reached and entered Suite 17—now, for the sake of Emma’s comfort, Tess willingly braved the elevator—Emma had told her an incredible and somewhat incoherent story involving Rod, a lie told to her parents, her father’s sudden death, her mother’s anger and blame, a trip, in Derora’s company, to Portland. It had taken forever, Emma babbled on, for Mrs. Beauchamp had wanted to stop in every town along the way, it seemed, and tell her scattered friends that she was rich.

Not even trying to make sense of the epic at this point, Tess simply took her friend to her own room, persuaded her to undress and put on a wrapper.

“You rest, Emma,” she said, with gentle firmness. “I’ll go and make you some tea. Are you hungry?”

“I want a bath!” wailed Emma, for all the world like a little girl.

“You won’t swoon again, will you?” Tess fretted. “You could drown—”

Emma’s eyes widened at the prospect, but some of her aplomb returned, too. “Of course I won’t drown. I’m a grown woman, Tess Bishop!”

Tess didn’t bother to argue to the contrary; she simply led Emma across the hallway to the bathroom and started water running into the huge, claw-footed tub.

Just sinking into that water seemed to restore Emma immeasurably. She asked for soap, and when that was produced she sighed with contentment and crooned, “My tea, please.”

Shaking her head and biting back a smile, Tess closed the door on her friend and hurried down the hallway, through the sitting room, through the dining room, and into the kitchen.

Asa and Olivia were out, seeing to their railroad passage east, but Rod was very much in evidence. He was, in fact, opening the doors of cupboards, peering inside, and then slamming them closed again.

Tess felt a certain sweet triumph. For once, she was to have the upper hand where this troublesome new brother was concerned.

“Emma is here,” she announced briskly, as she took the teapot from the gas-powered stove.

It was as though she had flung a spear into Rod’s back. He stiffened and slowly turned to watch Tess as she filled the teapot at the sink and then set it on to boil.

“What?” Rod echoed, in a choked whisper. He had no color at all, and certainly that smug look was gone from his eyes.

“Your dear Emma. The girl you besmirched in Simpkinsville. She’s in our bathroom—”

“In our—”

“Bathroom.”

“What’s she doing here?!”

“I imagine she’s looking for you,” Tess couldn’t resist telling him. “Isn’t that sweet, Rod? That she’s so devoted, I mean?”

Rod’s Adam’s apple seemed to take on a life of its own, bobbing up and down along the usually flawless column of his manly throat. “You’ve—you’ve got to get rid of her!”

“I can’t do that. She’s my oldest and dearest friend and I’m afraid she’s destitute. Thanks to you, to hear her tell it, her father has perished from the shame and her mother turned her out.” Tess spoke these words flippantly, but as their full import struck her, she paused and turned as pale as Rod. “The least you can do is marry her,” she finished hollowly.

“Marry her? You must be mad! Cynthia Golden—”

“Cynthia Golden has nothing whatsoever to do with this matter, Rod, and you know it. Your chickens have just come home to roost!”

“One night—it was one night-”

“Sometimes one night is enough, Rod.”

In this case, as it happened, one night turned out to be more than enough. When Asa heard the whole of the story—and neither Tess nor Rod had to tell it because Emma assaulted the man with every detail the moment he entered what had been a relatively stable, if temporary home—he insisted that his son do the honorable thing.

Which was, to Asa’s repentant and thus morally inclined mind, to marry Emma Hamilton.

The two men retired together to the sitting room to discuss the matter—their shouts could be heard if not understood even from the parlor—and then reappeared, Asa gazing fondly upon Emma, Rod looking as though he would like to murder her where she stood.

A justice of the peace was sent for and, in good time, Emma and Rod became husband and wife.

Rod’s compliance was not hard to understand, once Tess had really thought about the situation. Born and raised in a wealthy family, he had grown used to comfort, to having plenty of money. And though he had forsworn those benefits for some years, probably coming near to starvation as an actor, he had had a renewed taste of them of late and become dependent again.

No doubt Asa, in his outrage, had given his son a choice between permanent penury and holy wedlock. Being nobody’s fool, Rod had chosen the latter.

Emma was overjoyed and immediately dispatched a wire to her mother, informing her of the happy event. And the fact that Rod slammed out of the apartment instead of romancing her in their marriage bed did not seem to bother her in the least.

The next morning, Tess moved into the quarters over her shop. There was a room for her with a spacious bed, a bureau, and a small wardrobe, a tiny kitchen with a wood-burning cookstove, and a “spare room,” hardly more than a closet, actually, that held one narrow cot.

To her, the place might as well have been a palace. It
was her own, after all, every nook and cranny and corner of it.

An account had been opened for Tess, across the street at the bank, so that she would have money to cover her living expenses until her business began to show a profit. It was with enormous pride that she withdrew a small sum to buy provisions at Mrs. McQuade’s dry goods store——a teapot, a set of dishes, towels, and sheets, grocery items. She felt rich, and that made it easier to part with her mother.

Asa and Olivia were leaving, that very day, for St. Louis. They would travel by train, stopping off occasionally to “see the sights,” as Asa put it. The real purpose, of course, would be to make the long journey as easy as possible for Olivia.

Asa’s devotion to Tess’s mother, belated as it was, was a tremendous comfort to Tess herself. She found, as she bid them both goodbye, at the railroad station, that she could put aside her own resentments and take joy in the fact that they had at last found each other.

All the same, as she rode back into the main part of the city with a sullen, pensive Rod and a chattering, incandescent Emma, Tess allowed herself a few tears and a modicum of self-pity. She was well and truly on her own now.

Well and truly on her own.

This came home to her with the force of a sledgehammer’s blow when she was dropped off in front of her shop, Emma singing a cheery goodbye from the carriage window, Rod sulking in the corner.

The newlyweds were to remain at the hotel, in luxurious Suite 17, until more permanent quarters could be found.

Watching as the carriage rolled away, Tess dealt with her own fears and misgivings by pondering what would become of Emma. Surely a loveless marriage, indeed a forced marriage, would be fraught with dangers and pitfalls of every sort.

Tess was frowning as she unlocked the shop door and went inside. She would have to keep an eye on Emma, who now referred to herself as Mrs. Roderick WaltamThatcher and seemed to have forgotten all about her father’s death and the further tragedy of her estrangement from her mother. But, then, that was Emma, the sunshine child, born to look on the bright side.

Humming, Tess climbed the stairs to her small quarters above and looked around with pride. She began uncrating the pretty dishes in the middle of her tiny kitchen table, checking each one for chips and cracks. When that was done, she stoked up her wood stove—Asa had even seen that there were chunks of pitchy pine for the purpose—and heated water in her new dishpan.

She bustled about happily, washing her dishes, putting them away on her shelves, washing her forks and knives and spoons and putting them in their drawer.

“Tess,” said a familiar, longed-for voice behind her.

She stopped, her back rigid, her soapy hands in midair. Keith. Had she said his name aloud? She didn’t think so, but she wasn’t sure. And she didn’t turn around. “You might knock or something,” she choked out.

“On what?” he asked softly. Hoarsely.

It was a reasonable question. She had, after all, neglected to shut the door to her quarters. It was
fortunate that it had been Keith who walked in, and not some—some ruffian.

Was there a difference?

She closed her eyes, willing her heart to beat at a pace that did not steal away her breath and close her throat.

He was behind her, his hands strong on her shoulders, but gentle, too, as they turned her.

“I love you,” he said.

The words came as a shock to Tess, like being drenched in ice-cold water or startled on a very dark night. She could say nothing, see nothing—except for the golden wedding band that hung in the V of his open-necked shirt.

“Tess.”

She broke free of him, turned away again. “The ring. Amelie.” The words were broken, incoherent. But they were the best she could manage. “Please, go away.”

Keith did not go away. She heard a chinking sound and turned to see the ring and its chain sitting on the table in a little, glimmering pyramid. “I love you,” he repeated.

Tess stared at the small rise of gold and then shifted her gaze to his face. His beloved face. “If you want me for a mistress—”

He only waited, watching her. Was that smugness gleaming in his sky-blue eyes, or was it tender amusement?

“I won’t be that.” Brave words, she thought to herself. If he kissed her, she would respond like a hussy—she wouldn’t be able to help herself.

He came nearer and then nearer still, and Tess trembled as he cupped her face in his hands, entangling
his fingers in her hair. He bent his head and his lips were warm, tantalizing at her temple.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a preacher once?” she demanded, in desperation. Tingles of heated desire were already prickling through every part of her.

“You didn’t ask,” he muttered, and each word had the effect of a caress, going from the top of Tess’s head to the tips of her toes.

“A person wouldn’t think to—”

He undid the tiny buttons of her prim shirtwaist, easily displaced the frilly camisole hidden beneath.

“A person couldn’t know—”

Keith chuckled and took the peak of one full and eager breast into his mouth. And, after that, Tess didn’t even try to talk anymore.

Chapter Thirteen

C
ORNELIA
H
AMILTON STOOD BEFORE HER HUSBAND’S RAW
grave, stricken and alone. Jessup was gone, Emma was gone. Both of them dead, though Emma did not rest here in the churchyard, like her father.

There had been a wire—from somewhere. Where? Oh, yes. Portland. Emma was in Portland, married. Happy.

That was a lie, of course. Emma was dead, just as Jessup was dead. And it was all the fault of one man, one evil, despoiling man.

Cornelia tilted back her head, searched the bright April sky for a sign from God. Seeing none, she wrapped her spring cloak tighter around her thin
frame. Jessup, Jessup—such a generous, kind husband he had been. “Choose any cloak you like, my love,” he’d said. “Choose any cloak in the catalogue.”

She shivered, though it wasn’t cold. She was not a strong woman, like Derora Beauchamp or her niece, Tess—no. Cornelia could not survive without her man, and she hadn’t the spirit to find another.

Soon enough, she would rest here, beside Jessup, her own grave freshly mounded, like his. But first—first there was one thing to do.

She looked up at the sky again. “Just one thing to do,” she whispered, and, in the distance, she heard the lonely whistle of the train. Quickly. She must prepare for the journey quickly.

Tess was powerless to stop the man taking suckle at her breast; indeed, she had no desire to stop him. She moaned as he made a sweet feast of her, her fingers knotted in his wheat-gold hair.

Gradually, Keith lowered her until she lay upon the table, beside the box that had contained her new dishes. He plied her other breast now, suckling and then kissing, nibbling, and then gently, gently biting. Tess was electrified and near blind with the need of him.

She felt her skirts edging upward; there was a cool rush of air upon her most heated part as his hand captured her, touched her, tormented her. Her legs dangled over the side of the table and parted willingly enough at his urging.

“Keith—”

“It’s all right.”

“T-This is a t-table!”

“And you are a feast.”

His hand undid the ribbon ties of her drawers. He did not lower the garment, but instead reached inside. Heated moisture was there to greet him; Tess’s hips began to lift and then fall again, repeatedly.

Keith left her breasts—they felt damp and good and fiercely peaked-and then suddenly he was nipping at the core of her, through the thin fabric of her drawers.

She gasped, knowing that she would be bared to him. Soon, she would be bared to him, to be savored and enjoyed at his leisure. The excitement quickened her already thunderous heartbeat and made her breath come in throbbing gulps.

“Keith, Keith—”

He brought her drawers down, slowly. Skillfully. She shivered and then cried out hoarsely because he parted her for claiming.

Keith kissed her softly, causing her to writhe now and wail to be taken, consumed. One of his hands rose to attend a pulsing breast, cupping, caressing, gently rolling a pleading nipple between thumb and forefinger. He chuckled—it was a rich, masculine sound—and then his mouth devoured her.

Tess cried out again and convulsed, so ferocious was the pleasure to which he subjected her, but he was not moved to mercy. No, he was avaricious, nipping her and then tonguing her and then taking full suckle.

Treacherous heat built within Tess, she moaned and tossed like a wild thing, exalting in the giving and in the taking, in the terror and the beauty. Finally, there was a sweet, tearing burst of light and warmth within her, and she stretched her hands high above her head, her breasts jutting proud and bare with the motion, in
delicious, abandoned surrender. Her cry of release was a high, keening cry of some savage creature living within her.

His hand still working the imprisoned breast, Keith kissed her, softly, again and again, until she had reached another point of shuddering, incomprehensible need.