Honor's Fury

by Fiona Harrowe

  She ran out into the hall. “Damon!”

  He paused, one hand on the rail, his back rigid. “I thought you’d be gone by now.” He turned, facing her.

  “No. There is something I wanted to say. Couldn't we talk?”

  “About what?”

  The question was asked with a sharpness that chilled but did not discourage her.

  “Several things,” Amélie said, keeping her voice even. “And I'd rather not discuss them on the stairway.”

  He came down reluctantly and followed her into the parlor. She sat, but he stood on the hearth, hands in the pockets of his dark riding coat, booted feet apart as if challenging her.

  “I—I”—she began hesitantly, then plunged in—“I wanted to tell you why I left that morning in Nashville without writing a note.”

  “It’s not necessary,” he said, his eye veiled.

  “It is necessary, maybe not for you, but for me.” She went on then, briefly sketching her misunderstanding concerning the watch and how she had met up with Thaddeus and how he had explained about pawning it.

  “So you see, I was wrong. You must have come into possession of it in a perfectly innocent way.”

  “As a matter of fact,” he said caustically, “I noticed the watch in a pawnshop window the day after you came to headquarters in Nashville. I recognized it. I thought it looked like a watch Thaddeus once showed me. I went in to investigate and saw the inscription. I bought it, thinking to present it to you, and would have done so—but then you left.”

  “Oh, Damon!” She got to her feet, coming toward him, her heart in her eyes. But he didn’t move, merely gave her a shriveling look. “You don’t know how sorry I am, Damon. How I regret . . . Last night—’’

  “Last night,” he interrupted contemptuously, “was an episode, a lonely man satisfying his needs.”

  “Is that all I meant to you?”

  “Did you expect more?”

  “I thought you loved me.” Her throat ached and it was an effort to get the words out.

  “In my youth,” he said bitterly, “when I was a young man. A hundred years ago. Not now.”

  “But I—I’ve been through much myself and yet I feel I can love—”

  “Are you trying to tell me you love me? My dear Mrs. Warner, it's pity, not love. You pity my mutilation and you think you love me and I want no part of it.”

  “That just isn’t so!” she cried, annoyed at his obtuseness.

  “Isn’t it?” he jeered. “You may be able to fool yourself, Mrs. Warner, but you aren’t fooling me. And now—if you will excuse me?” He gave her a mock bow. “I’ve had a long day.”

  Amélie slept little that night. Tormented by old guilts, by anger alternating with a feeling of desolation, she twisted and turned on the pillows, dry eyed, wanting to weep but unable to. If only she had it to live over again, if only she had waited for Damon to explain the watch, if only he weren’t so stubborn, so damned prideful, if only . . .

  Finally she fell into a fitful doze and was awakened an hour later by the hoarse crowing of a cock. Blue jays and finches chattered noisily in the sycamore outside. The room had lightened to a dull gray. She got out of bed and went to the window. Drawing the curtains aside, she looked out on the world stirring from a sleep that had eluded her. In the paddock a brown, white-starred stallion levered himself up on fragile, banded legs and began to nose the grass. A squirrel clawed its erratic way down a tree trunk, its bushy tail swinging and twitching. On the horizon beyond a stand of yellow poplars dark, slate colored clouds had built up into clusters.

  Amélie having come to a sudden decision, turned from the window. She would leave. Now. Before anyone got up. She didn't want to stay where she was barely tolerated and that out of patronizing charity. She didn't want to see Damon again, couldn’t bear to be with Toby knowing that each time she did, it made her eventual departure more difficult.

  She dressed hurriedly, then began packing her saddle bags, stuffing handkerchiefs, a scarf, and soap inside. Pulling at the bureau drawer to retrieve her torn petticoat she found it was stuck. Giving it a hard jerk, the drawer came flying out, nearly crashing to the floor before she caught it. As she fitted the sliding compartment back into its slot an envelope caught her eye. It was a letter addressed to her at Arbormalle in her sister’s handwriting, a piece of correspondence Babette apparently had forgotten to mail.

  Amélie slit the envelope open and read:

  Dear Amélie:

  I know you’ll be mad when I tell you what I’m about to do. But please, my darling sister, try to forgive me. I can’t bear being married to Damon Fowler. He’s mean tempered, cold; a brute. And the scar and the eye! I saw it once without the patch. Ugh! It made me sick for a week. He’s not really a husband, hasn’t been one to me since before Toby was born. He hates me. About two weeks ago I got a letter from Willie. I don’t know how he found my address, how he knew I was married, but he said he still loved me, that I was his, and could I meet him in Lexington and talk it over?

  I went. It wasn’t all that hard getting away from Damon; he doesn’t care much what I do. Willie looked grand. When I saw him I just melted all the way down to my toes. He’s gotten older and wiser, really. He says he doesn't give a hang about his mother and would I run away with him?

  Oh, Amélie, I love him. I'm sure of it now. He's my one chance for happiness and there's nothing but misery here. I can't take Toby. Damon is that crazy about him he'd kill me. And I don't know as Willie would cotton to another man's child. So I'll leave Toby in good hands with his father. Darling, please try to understand.

  As ever, your loving sister,

  Babette

  Amélie reread the letter, trying to understand and finding it hard. Could she forgive Babette? She didn’t know. She had forgiven her sister for so much—her selfishness, her greed, her lack of principle and morality. Leaving a husband whom she had vowed to cherish until death was bad enough, but her child?

  And yet in her heart Amélie knew that the bond forged between them in childhood could never be broken. There were too many memories. In the future there would be a softening, a wish to forget or excuse, but for now she couldn’t think that far ahead. She had other more urgent matters on her mind.

  Slipping downstairs, she went out the door and crossed the yard to the stable. The young black boy who had taken her horse when she arrived brought it out again, saddled and ready to ride.

  Once mounted she trotted down the drive, noticing that the dark clouds were swiftly moving in. The lowering sky pulsed momentarily with forked lightning and the last patch of blue disappeared as muted thunder racketed across the treetops. The air smelled of imminent rain. Let it, she thought bitterly. It won’t be the first time I’ve been caught in a shower.

  She had reached the stone wall of the paddock when the first drops began to fall, but she went on, lifting her coat collar, settling her hat more firmly on her head. The horse, which had been so manageable on the journey in, seemed wilful now. Heedless of Amélie's kicks he kept moving his neck in arched, backward thrusts as if wanting to turn about. He’s not had his breakfast, Amélie thought; he misses his bucket of oats. Well, he'll just have to do without.

  It was raining in earnest now, the pitter-patter of drops on the leaves over her head growing stronger. Suddenly above the sound of falling rain she heard the thud of hooves and turning in the saddle saw Damon coming towards her.

  “Amélie!”

  She waited. When he reached her, he drew up his horse, dancing in a tight circle, before he brought it to a halt.

  “And just where the hell do you think you are going?” he demanded roughly. He had come out coatless and his white shirt, drenched with rain, stuck to his powerful shoulders. His tousled hair gleamed wetly.

  “Is it any concern of yours?” Amélie retorted. “I'm leaving, which should be cause for a grand sigh of relief on your part.”

  “Leaving,” he said bitterly. “Without a word. Isn’t that like you? Not tha
t I care. But Toby—he’s calling for you. You could have made some gesture of farewell to the boy.”

  “He’ll get used to my not being there. He’s too young to miss me for long.”

  His lips twisted contemptuously. “You don’t give a damn about other people’s feelings, do you?”

  “Feelings? You’re one to talk.” Her voice rose as thunder crashed and pealed. “You haven’t even got feelings. You’re nothing but an icy rock.”

  “I’d rather be an icy rock than a hypocrite who kisses one moment, then stabs you the next.”

  “Why of all the . . .!”

  It was raining hard now, sheet after sheet of chill, needlelike water falling in a steady, slanting cascade, forming a curtain between them. But it might as well have been a curtain of steel. They were both shouting, their angered voices trying to rise above the downpour, but neither was listening. The horses stood with lowered heads against the pelting rain. Water spilled from the curved brim of Amélie’s felt hat, beading her lashes, dripping from her nose, running down her cheeks. Soaked through, she hardly felt it. Frustration, defiance, and hurt churned sickly within her. Damon pushed his damp hair back from his forehead with an impatient gesture, twisting the reins about his wrist to steady his horse, which had started to move again.

  “You might have spared us by not coming at all!'’ he hurled at her.

  “I wish to God I hadn’t!” It was true. With all her heart she wished she had remained in Baltimore, at Bancroft, wished that a sense of duty had not prompted her to make this futile journey. And now this confrontation in the downpour was the last straw. It was too much. She felt a sob rise from the tightness in her chest, tears burning behind her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry. She was past crying over Damon. Nevertheless, her shoulders shook and the tears began to spill down her cheeks. She lowered her head so that he could not see.

  There was a long silence while she tried to compose herself. The only sound that could be heard was the rain, a hollow pattering on leafy branches, the gurgling of overflowing ditches. A bird cheeped timidly nearby, then the thrumming rain was the only sound again.

  She choked on another sob. Damn him, why doesn’t he go? Amélie’s anguished mind pleaded. Why doesn’t he go and leave me with whatever scrap of pride I have left?

  “Amélie . . .?” Her name was so muffled she couldn’t be sure she heard it.

  She started to turn the horse when a hand grasped the reins and brought her back.

  “Amélie?”

  She made another valiant effort to control her weeping but could not.

  “Amélie.” Damon was speaking, calling her name in the old, tender way.

  She raised her head, her face wet with tears and rain. His features were a blur she couldn’t read. Had he spoken or had she imagined it?

  “Damon—” she swallowed, a hiccup cutting speech short.

  He pulled her horse abreast of his. Reaching out with strong hands he drew her from the saddle into his lap.

  “Don’t cry—please, don’t cry. It—oh, God, what an ass! Don’t cry, darling.’’

  “Damon, I can’t . . .’’ The transformation had been so sudden, his capitulation so abrupt, she could do nothing but weep all the harder.

  Lifting her sopping hat from her head, he tossed it aside. He held her against his hard chest, caressing her hair, mumbling, muttering comforting words. Gradually her sobs subsided.

  “I didn’t want your pity or your love,’’ he said, speaking into her hair. “I tried to fend you off with anger. But I couldn’t. When I found you had gone this morning, the house suddenly seemed empty. Not only the house, but me. Your leaving left a void. I saw then that whatever I planned to do with my life—raising horses, bringing up Toby—meant nothing without you. I love you, Amélie. I've never really stopped. How could I have been such a fool? How—’’

  She raised her head. “Hush!”

  “But—’’

  Her lips did not let him finish. Heedless of the rain, locked in each other’s arms, they kissed over and over again. Their closeness, their mingling breaths and wordless sighs, knotted the tie between them, absolving their differences, erasing obstacles, wiping out bitterness, anger, hate, war. And pride, too.

  At last Damon moved Amélie’s face away, cupping her chin, looking down at her with one fiery eye.

  ‘How can you love me after the things I’ve said, after yesterday?’’

  She laughed. “It isn’t easy, Damon. It never was easy.” For the space of a moment her mother’s disapproving face, Babette’s perfidy, divorce, remarriage, and all the difficulties that lay ahead of them flashed through her mind. “But I don’t want an ‘easy’ man,’’ she said, firmly dismissing such intrusive thoughts. “I want you, Damon.’’

  He kissed the tip of her wet nose. “I love you,’’ he said. “But I warn you, I’m never going to let you go again. That I promise.’’

  “And I’ll hold you to your word. Colonel Fowler,’’ Amélie said, encircling his neck with her arms, lifting her mouth to his once more, thinking there never was a sweeter, more willing surrender.