Morning Song (18 page)

Stuart merely grinned at her.

"Looking for Celia," he said, his eyes twinkling in a way that told Jessie as clearly as any words could have that he knew perfectly well she'd been playing at kissing. "Aunt Flora sent me to find her. She wants a recipe for a potion to fight the wrinkling of skin that she swears Celia has."

"I haven't seen her," Jessie managed, while her blood ran cold. Because she suddenly knew, as surely as if the glass had been clear rather than milky, just who it was who was kissing her lover inside the greenhouse only a few yards away.

Celia, the fool, was up to her old tricks again.

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XX

So
who were you kissing, anyway?"

Under the circumstances, the question should have reduced Jessie to tongue-tied embarrassment. But because her mind was racing, it barely fazed her.

"I wasn't kissing anybody."

"I know kissing when I see it."

Stuart was grinning as he walked forward to catch Jessie's chin in his hand and tilt her face up for his inspection. The light was growing dimmer by the second, for which Jessie was thankful. If it grew dark enough quickly enough, it might just keep Stuart from realizing that there was anyone in the greenhouse at all. And maybe it would keep him from recognizing the panic in her eyes as well.

Thinking fast, Jessie managed an artistic shiver.

"Let's go in. I'm cold."

"Not 'til you tell me who your fantasy beau is." He was still holding her face tilted up to his. Jessie was too agitated to take even guilty pleasure from his touch. She pulled her chin free and caught his hand instead.

"Celia's probably around at the front
of
the house with the children."

"1
doubt it. She detests children. She told me so." Jessie walked around him, heading back in the direction of the house. She still held his hand, and he obligingly swiveled with her, but other than that he didn't budge.

"What's that boy's name? Mitchell? You could do better, you know."

152

"I'm not even interested in him," Jessie snapped, and because she was so nervous her voice carried the ring of truth.

"So who were you kissing?"

"I was
practicing,
for goodness' sake! Will you please stop yammering on about it and come inside?"

She tugged at his hand again. He was as immovable as a mountain.

"That dress is mighty fetching. You could be out here practicing on Mitchell if you wanted."

Her dance dress was made of yards and yards of deep gold silk with a low-cut bodice that left her creamy shoulders bare and a wide skirt ending in a triple flounce that reduced her waist to nothingness. It was a lovely dress, and Jessie had been more than pleased with her reflection in the cheval glass upstairs. At the moment, however, not even Stuart's compliment could distract her from her purpose. She had to get him away from that greenhouse at once.

"I don't want to practice on Mitch. I don't want to practice on anyone. I want to go inside."

Stuart's eyes glinted with amusement. He hadn't finished teasing her by a long shot, Jessie could see. His boots remained obstinately planted as she tried to urge him along the path toward the house. Jessie practically stamped her foot with vexation. How was she ever to get him away from that spot?

"Tell the truth, Jessie: you're practicing for your first kiss. Who's the lucky fellow going to be?"

"Would you quit being so idiotic and move? Mosquitoes are eating me alive!"

"Funny, none are biting me. I think you're just shy."

"I am not shy!"

153

"Don't let whoever he is have more than one little peck, now, or he'll think you're fast. And keep your lips closed tight."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Kissing."

"I don't want to talk about kissing. I . . ." But it was too late. Jessie's words died in her throat and her eyes widened with horror as Celia emerged from the greenhouse, laughing over her shoulder. Jessie could not see Celia's companion. He still stood just inside the open door. Her shocked expression must have alerted Stuart, because he glanced around. When he saw Celia he stiffened. His fingers clenched on Jessie's hand.

Her hand tightened instinctively around his. From the tide of red that flooded his cheekbones, Jessie knew that he was not going to take discovering his wife in a secluded spot with another man lightly. She only thanked God that he had not seen the embrace.

"What the hell . . . ?" His exclamation was low, and ugly. Jessie tried to cling to his hand, tried to hold him back, but he shook her off and strode toward his wife.

"Stuart!" Celia's voice was little more than a squeak. She glanced quickly over her shoulder as Stuart approached her, looking, to Jessie's mind, the very picture of guilt. Seth Chandler stepped out of the greenhouse. When he saw Stuart he stopped in his tracks.

"I, uh, we, uh—" Chandler stuttered, his eyes bulging. He tugged at his high collar as if it were suddenly too tight. Stuart didn't even give him time to finish. He walked up to Chandler and, without saying so much as a word, sucker154

punched him with a right to his jaw that sent the man crashing back through the greenhouse door.

Celia screamed. Jessie ran toward the greenhouse and Stuart. Stuart caught his wife by the arm and jerked her close against his body. His eyes as they bore down into Celia's blazed murder. Celia cringed. Afraid of what he might do, Jessie ran up and caught his free arm, tugging.

"Don't hurt her," she said urgently.

"You goddamned slut." The words were very quiet. Stuart ignored Jessie entirely. His attention was all for Celia. The insult seemed to stiffen Celia's spine. She reddened, and tried without success to jerk her arm from her husband's grasp. When she couldn't, she stopped struggling and stood glaring up at him. Celia was tiny, and Stuart was tall and muscular. Both were flushed with anger. In any physical dispute between them, it was obvious who the victor must be. Gazing at Stuart towering furiously over his wife, Jessie wondered that Celia had the nerve to defy him. He looked as if he could break her in half without any effort at all.

"Slut, am I?" Celia hissed. "For no more than talking in private to an old friend of my late husband's? If merely being private with a man makes a woman a slut, then what about our Jessie, out here all alone in the dark with
you?"

"Leave Jessie out of this." It was a growled warning. Celia laughed angrily. Her eyes flashed over Jessie, then returned to Stuart. At the insinuation, Jessie had immediately dropped Stuart's arm and taken a step back from him. Now she flushed. The look in her stepmother's eyes made her feel unclean. 155

"See there? Look at her! The picture of guilt! Come now, husband mine, confess: you've been playing fast and loose with sweet little Jessie." Celia's voice dripped venom. Stuart's face tightened so that muscles stood out in his jaw. His hand around Celia's arm must have tightened, too, because Celia gasped and winced.

"Two nights after we were wed, I caught you in the hay with a bloody stableboy. You weren't worth killing then, and you're not now."

"Christ, man, it's not a killing matter! There was nothing—

nothing much ..."

Seth Chandler made the ultimate mistake of getting back on his feet and staggering through the doorway. He almost barreled into Stuart, and in fact tried to steady himself with a hand on Stuart's shoulder. At his touch Stuart whirled and caught him by the lapels of his elegant coat, lifting him almost off his feet. Chandler was a stocky, muscular man, but in the face of Stuart's wrath and his own knowledge of wrongdoing he was as meek as a whipped puppy. Watching with her hand pressed against her mouth, Jessie thought that even if she hadn't seen that furtive embrace, Chandler's very demeanor screamed guilt.

"We were just talking—it was perfectly innocent," Chandler babbled, his hands scrabbling at Stuart's where they were entwined in his coat.

"You
talk
to my wife again, and I'll beat you to a pulp." It was more of a promise than a threat. "Understand?" Chandler nodded jerkily, fear plain in his eyes.

Stuart's lip curled. Abruptly he released his grip on the coat. Chandler's knees sagged, and he stumbled backward. He managed to catch hold of the greenhouse doorjamb, and that was 156

all that saved him from measuring his length on the ground again.

"Get out of my sight," Stuart growled. Rubbing his sore jaw, Chandler shakily complied.

Celia had not moved, watching the demolishment of her lover's dignity with contempt plain in her eyes. As Stuart turned back to her, she stood her ground. Jessie thought her stance conveyed a kind of triumph.

"What do you care if I amuse myself, anyway? You only married me to get your damned hands on my money!"

"And you only married me to prove that you could, so I'd say we deserve each other."

Stuart reached out suddenly and caught one of Celia's bouncy ringlets, curling it around his fingers and then giving it a sharp tug.

"For whatever reason we married, the fact remains that we
are
married. I won't be made a laughingstock by my wife."

"And I won't be made a slave by my husband!" Stuart smiled, a cold and sinister smile that was evil enough to scare Jessie, at least.

"Understand this: you've had your warning. If I catch you fornicating a second time, I'll kill you."

He let go of her hair, untangling his fingers from the clinging curl with a roughness clearly designed to hurt. Celia yelped and stepped quickly back, her hand flying to rub her abused scalp.

"I hate you," she spat.

"Good." The word was brutal. Celia threw him a murderous look, then turned on her heel and flounced off toward the house.

"Bitch," Stuart muttered. His face was dark with anger. Slamming his fists into the pockets of his coat, he swiveled in the 157

opposite direction from Celia and started walking away from the house.

Undecided, Jessie watched him go. Should she leave him alone? The utter vileness of what she had just witnessed had left her sick to her stomach, and Stuart certainly had not looked in the mood for company. But seeing that stiff, proud back disappear into the gathering darkness, Jessie realized that sne really did not have a choice in the matter after all. She could not bear for him to be alone. Biting her lip, she hurried after Stuart. When she caught up to him, he was leaning against a waisthigh stone wall that bisected a field. Jessie was almost upon him before she saw him, so well did his dark blue coat blend with the coming night

As she moved to stand beside him, Jessie said nothing. She continued to say nothing as he stared off into the field on the other side of the wall. Neither by word nor by gesture did he give any indication that he was aware of her presence. And yet Jessie knew that he knew she was there.

It was some few minutes before he spoke.

"I'm sorry you had to witness that," he said at last.

"It doesn't matter."

He looked at her then, fleetingly, before his eyes returned to the mist that was just floating in. "You told me the truth about her, didn't you? And I slapped your face for your pains. I've never apologized for that. I do now."

"It doesn't matter," Jessie said again. The response was inadequate, she knew, but his pain was so palpable that she was hurting, too.

"I don't love her. I never loved her."

"I know."

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"You were right. I married her for Mimosa." "I know that, too."

"But I thought I could make it work. I thought
we
could make it work. God in heaven." Stuart shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them again to stare unseeingly in front of him. Hundreds of fireflies flitted across the dense blue velvet darkness that now covered the vastness of the rolling fields. Their lights flickered constantly. The sight was eerily beautiful, like a fairy dance.

"We've been married only a few months, and I hate her. I hate her enough to kill her, so help me God I do." Stuart leaned more heavily against the wall, his hands braced on its rough top, his head bowing. Jessie put a gentle hand on his sleeve, her throat tight with threatened tears. He hurt, and so she hurt. The knowledge with all its ramifications was scary.

"God, I've made a mess of things," he muttered, lifting his head suddenly. His hand lifted, too, to form a fist and pound down on the top of the wall.

Jessie started. Though it was leashed, the sheer desperate violence of the action made her heart leap with sudden, instinctive fear. Then she saw that he had straightened and was shaking and flexing his right hand. His scarred hand. The hand he'd used to punch Chandler and hit the wall.

Reaching out, fear forgotten, she caught that much-abused hand in both of hers and began to gently knead the puckered palm.

XXI

That feels good." He was looking down at her bent head as she worked on his hand. Jessie knew he was; she could sense it. But she refused to look up. Her attention focused exclusively on that 159

poor maltreated hand— because she was afraid to let it focus anywhere else.

"How did you get the scar?" The question was meant to cover a myriad of conflicting emotions. His hand, with its broad palm and long fingers, was large compared with hers. The skin at the base and tips of his fingers was slightly roughened with calluses. Against the softness of her own skin as she gently rubbed his fingers, the calluses felt abrasive. His hand was warm, shades browner than hers, which looked ridiculously white in comparison, and its back was sprinkled with black hair. The scar in the center of his palm was ugly, circular, and red. His fingers had drawn in toward his palm as if from an involuntary muscular contraction. Jessie massaged the knotted tendons beneath the distracting flesh and thought she felt them ease slightly. Still she didn't look up.

"Knife fight. Some months back." At that she did look up. "A knife fight?" There was a note of incredulity in her voice. His mouth twisted wryly. "Does that surprise you?" Jessie considered, then shook her head. "No. Not really. Now that I think about it, getting into a knife fight seems perfectly in character for you. I thought when I first saw you that you looked dangerous."