The Officer and the Traveler (19 page)

“
Good.”
 

Her eyes drifted back to his ribs and she swallowed uncomfortably. Even lying down they looked painful. She reached hesitant fingers to the fastenings of his waistband and loosened it to give him a bit more breathing room and a little less pressure on his abdomen.

“
Thank you,” he rasped.
 

She had the oddest urge to kiss his bruised cheek.

He idly patted the bed next to him. “Sit. We’ll talk.”

Michaela smoothed her skirts. “Are you sure? Perhaps you should rest now and we’ll talk later.”

“
No,” he said, not bothering to open his eyes which were so swollen she doubted he could open them very far anyway. “We’ll talk now—even if I have to hold you down to do it.”
 

“
Yes, because you look like you have the strength and stealth to do that very thing,” she teased.
 

He opened one eye a sliver. “Don’t test me.”

Shaking her head, she walked around to the other side of the bed and sat down next to him. If he wished to talk, she’d listen, but now wasn’t the time to argue.

“
I didn’t mean it how it came out. Earlier,” he clarified. “This morning.”
 

Michaela’s face heated and she moved to sit with her back against the wall and her legs out in front of her on the bed, parallel to his body. She lowered her hand to his head and idly combed her fingers through his thick, black hair. “I know.”

He opened his eyes and looked up at her. “You do?”

She sighed. “We’ve been married for less than two days, I didn’t expect that you’d have suddenly fallen in love with me.”

“
So you ran because of your father?”
 

She momentarily stilled her fingers. “I didn’t hear him coming up the stairs, then suddenly he was there lurking in the corner behind you and it suddenly occurred to me that everything I’d said to you, I’d said outside where anyone could see or hear us—including him.”

“
I spoke to him about sneaking up on people and he claimed he was there the whole time.” He groaned and shifted positions a little. “You do understand that even if I knew he’d been there or we’d have had our discussion inside, it wouldn’t have changed things between us?”
 

“
I think so.”
 

“
No, I don’t think you do.” He grimaced and grunted and groaned and moved into a seated position next to her. He reached across his abdomen and placed his hand on his ribs. “His presence here doesn’t bother me.” He frowned a little. “Actually, it does, but not in that way. Regardless of you being his daughter, you are my wife...” He trailed off, a silent plea of understanding in his eyes.
 

“
But you don’t really see me that way,” she said softly.
 

“
No, I see you that way,” he corrected, letting his eyes fall to her chest briefly.
 

Tingles ran up her spine. “But you don’t love me,” she tried again, silently congratulating herself on her voice only wavering a little during that entire statement.

He groaned and raked his hands through his hair. “I don’t know how to explain this.”

“
I don’t think there is anything else to explain.” She prayed he didn’t contradict her. It was embarrassing enough that this had somehow all seemed to take a turn where it appeared
she
was the
one who wanted intimacies all the time. That wasn’t it. Not really. She did enjoy them well enough, but she didn’t
need
them. It was more a thing of pride mixed with duty, she supposed. How was she supposed to keep her husband happy and content if he had no interest in her that way?
 

“
No, I need to explain.” He let out a breath that sounded almost akin to a sigh of defeat. “My mother was a prostitute.”
 

Michaela wasn’t sure which broke her heart more: the shock of his words or the way he’d lowered his lashes and bent his head almost as if he were ashamed to admit such a fact aloud.

“
Up until we met at McHenry, I’d lived in a room at a brothel in the city. Every night men would come in, select a scarcely dressed woman they liked, then use her for their pleasure. There was no love and certainly not much enjoyment on the woman’s side of things. Just business. Coins in exchange for pleasure. No different than going to a play or opera, really. The only difference was that usually there was only one performer and one patron who’d become a performer and in the end they both won: one got pleasure, one got money. I didn’t know or understand any different, just thought this was just the way the world worked and didn’t ask questions.
 

“
While some women truly saw their lives as just a job and a way of being, others didn’t. Some of the men hurt the women. Sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally. As a boy, I was just told my mother was ‘entertaining a gentleman’. But when I got older, I noticed bruises, or would hear screams or cries.” His pale face grew dark with a haunted shadow. “That didn’t sound like any sort of ‘entertainment’ to me.”
 

A sob formed in Michaela’s chest at his words. “Oh, Gray,” she choked.

“
By the time I was old enough to understand what happened between the women and the men who came each night, I had no interest in the act. No matter how much my body demanded I do
something
to fulfill the feelings, even just the sight of a woman filled me with, I couldn’t. Women at brothels, no matter how much they deny it, have feelings and lives, too. They might grow to act numb to their work, but that’s just it: it’s just an act. There is no respect or security, no promise of anything past a few coins in exchange for their dignity and possibly well-being.” He swallowed audibly. “You’re my wife and I treated you exactly the same.”
 

The disgust that filled his voice nearly shattered her already broken heart and brought tears to her eyes. “No,” she said, shaking her head fiercely. “You didn’t mean to hurt me. I know that.”

The pain that flashed in his eyes at her words only made her hurt for him more.

“
The blood,” she rushed to say. “It’s...it wasn’t because you hurt me. Well, you did, but only a little...it was supposed to.”
 

He nodded once. “That does relieve me to know I didn’t hurt you as bad as I thought I had, but it’s not just about the blood.” He attempted a wobbly smile, the best his bruised face would allow. “My feelings for you aren’t what they should be and I won’t take away any more of your dignity by asking you to do that again or I’d be no better than any of those men who used my mother and her friends.”

A new sense of understanding came over her, one that made perfect sense at first, but then led to more questions. Numerous questions. Questions she wasn’t certain she wanted answered. Licking her lips, she screwed up the courage to ask just one. One that would answer so many others. “That woman, the one who I witnessed being held down and used by the men—”

“
Was my mother.”
 

Gray inwardly cursed himself for what he’d just revealed to her.
No, she has a right to know
. She was his wife, his future; she had a right to know every one of the sordid details of his past.
 

“
Michaela?” he asked, breaking the silence.
 

Her eyes bore into him, but not really seeing him. The expression on her face suggested she might be trying to make sense of everything.

“
So the night at the brothel...”
 

His heart constricted and blood pounded in his ears, cutting off anything else she might have said. He remembered that night better than almost any other night of his life. He’d happened upon a group of ten or so men who were taking turns pinning down a prostitute, while the others had their turn at her.

She screamed and a man hit her across the face, then covered her mouth and threatened her not to make another noise. Her dress was ripped leaving her almost completely revealed as she flailed under their brutal treatment of her. Rage surged through him at their vile and rough treatment of her and he tried to stop them, but couldn’t. He was only a thin boy of sixteen and there were too many of them. They easily overpowered him. He fell to the ground battered and resigned, hurting and defeated, but he didn’t dare reveal who she was to him, lest either of them get a worse beating than they’d each already taken.

But his hope didn’t matter. His mother called his name. Her tone was soft and nearly inaudible, but he’d heard her nonetheless. He met her tear filled eyes and followed them to where she looked at a large pile of rubble and waste material. He squinted at the hill of debris and through a small opening caught a glimpse of Michaela squatting behind a pile, peeking over the edge at the display of men through a small opening.

With one last look back to his mother, pleading with her not to hate him for failing her, he crawled to Michaela and while the men were still distracted, he rescued the trembling girl before someone else saw her and hurt her.

The same emotions that went through him that night cycled through him again at the memory. They’d both been scared. Unsure where to go and what to do, uncertain of his own future, he’d saddled a horse for them and had let the horse run as fast as he could away from the fort. When he was sure they were a safe distance away, they stopped. Climbing down to give the horse and them a rest, he’d offered her a piece of jerky from the ration he always kept in his shirt pocket, then took a seat and pulled her close. At sixteen, he’d been reluctant to admit that his holding her was for anything other than to assure her that she was safe and no harm would come to her, but at twenty five, he knew better. They’d both been looking for comfort and reassurance that night and had found it by embracing the other.

How long they’d stayed there, nobody would ever know for it was the distant sound of a coyote howl that had pulled Gray from his fog. He needed to get Michaela home. The only trouble was, he couldn’t go there. Not yet. He needed to find out about his mother. It might be his only chance to see her again. It had already been almost two full years since he’d left her to go live with the colonel, he might not have another chance.

He knew it wasn’t proper to take Michaela to a brothel and more than that, he knew he’d need to protect her while they were there, even if that meant revealing to her the shame of who he was.

When they reached the brothel, Gray’s heart nearly exploded. General Davis’ horse was tied up in the front. That could only be bad news if the highest ranking officer from the fort had come. Not that he knew General Davis well, he didn’t. Only saw him in passing or when he’d been in trouble for a crime he might or might not have committed. It had always been a mystery to Gray why General Davis was always the first to learn of his indiscretion, but he assumed that was because he was the general, he knew everything.

The brothel had been exactly how Gray had remembered it: full of dense smoke and reeking of sweat, and other fluids... Holding onto Michaela’s hand so she couldn’t be hauled off or bothered, he went upstairs. Waiting in the hall was a line of his mother’s friends. None bothered to cover up and a few of the newer girls who didn’t know him were shameless enough to even try to flirt with him. He forced himself to be polite and offered them each a wide smile and a kiss on the hand. His heart might be aching from what he’d witnessed earlier, but theirs were always aching for having to live that torment. A little kindness from a man, no matter his age, would go a long way as a balm for their crushed spirits. He couldn’t deny them that.

When he reached the threshold of his mother’s room, he instantly went cold. General Davis was sitting at his mother’s bedside, holding her hand and kissing her cheek. So much made sense then. Why he’d been allowed to go live at the fort and why General Davis always knew every infraction he’d ever committed. Even why his mother had come to the fort that night: she and General Davis were carrying on a private love affair.

Rage had built in his chest. If it hadn’t been for the general’s disgusting urges that led him to send for her, his mother would have never endured such torture.

A second later the man looked up and surged to his feet. He came to the hall and his softened face turned to granite when he glimpsed Michaela. Gray abruptly released Michaela’s hand and ignored the general’s demand that they needed to speak. He didn’t give a damn. All that mattered to him at that moment was the battered woman lying in bed calling to him. With a quick directive of his own in the form of ‘go to hell’, Gray slammed the door and went where he was needed most.

“
Gray?”
 

Gray’s whole body jerked painfully. “Sorry,” he said, blinking. “I was woolgathering. Did you say something?”

“
Just that I’m sorry,” she said in a broken whisper. “I—I had no idea. All these years, I thought—” She swallowed convulsively. “Never mind what I thought. It was selfish.”
 

“
Selfish?”
 

She discovered a recent fascination with her fingernails. “That night, when you took me on the horse, I thought...thought... Well, I thought you’d changed your mind about me, or were starting to. Then, when we arrived at the brothel and you so easily dropped all interest in me to go running into the room of the lady who was calling your name, I was devastated. I didn’t realize what everything meant to you. I just saw how I felt and—and I’m sorry.”

“
Don’t be sorry, Michaela. As you said, you didn’t know. I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want anyone to know.”