“Of course not, Father!” Jacob blew up. “Angelica may be totally mad, but I am alarmingly sane in spite of her.” Jacob slumped back down in his chair, wondering if he dared mention divorce to the old man—his only way out now. He decided it was too risky. His father had had several mild attacks in the past months. Sighing again, Jacob asked hopelessly, “What am I do to?”
Dr. Saenger gripped his son’s arm. “I wish I could tell you, Jacob. If only there were an easy answer to all this. Life is seldom simple, my son.”
Jacob uttered a humorless laugh. “How well I know that, Father.”
On the first of April, Angelica, tired of waiting in Houston for Jacob’s reply, sneaked back to Galveston. She would have her way, Jacob be damned!
Disguised in mourning, her face covered by a heavy black veil, Angelica took the early train from Houston, arriving at the Galveston station while thick fog still shrouded the streets. She took a hired cab to the house on 13th Street and slipped in without being noticed.
The bedroom shades were drawn and Jacob was still sleeping when she arrived. She went to him and yanked the covers off.
Jacob woke instantly. Rubbing his eyes, he stared up at the black-clothed figure before him, half-believing that the Angel of Death had come for him.
Without preamble, she launched her attack. “I suppose you have an explanation for me?”
“Angelica?” Jacob would almost have preferred the Dark Angel.
“I’ve been waiting in Houston for over a week. Why haven’t you contacted me? What did you expect me to do?”
Collecting himself and pulling on his robe, Jacob tried to kiss her cheek, hoping to soothe her near-hysteria. She shoved him away.
“I expected you to do exactly what you have done—come home where you belong,” Jacob said coolly. “I hope you’ve finally realized what an insane plan it was.”
Angelica whipped off the veil and Jacob saw the mad, eerie light in her cold-blue eyes.
“No, I haven’t given up on my plan. I slipped back into town. No one knows I’m here.” She gave him a sardonic smile. “No one who counts, that is. I hope you’ve made proper arrangements by now.”
“I have not!” Jacob answered, his voice rising dangerously.
“Well, when will you?” she demanded.
“You’re crazy. I haven’t given the slightest thought to your outrageous scheme nor do I intend to. You might as well forget it, Angelica.”
“Forget it?” she screamed, coming at him with fists flying. “I will not! I cannot!”
Jacob caught her wrists and wrestled her down to the bed, pinning her on her back. She writhed and kicked at him.
“Now, you are going to listen to me, my dear wife!” Jacob said through clenched teeth. “There will be no stolen babies! Since you’ve come home and you are obviously not pregnant, we will tell everyone that you lost the child while visiting in Mobile. You stayed away recovering. And if you persist in this baby-snatching madness, I will sign the papers to have put you away.”
A long silence followed before Angelica finally conceded. “All right, all right,” she said. “Just let me go!” She began sobbing hysterically, the fight gone out of her.
Jacob released her and rose, feeling a sickness in the pit of his stomach. Angelica had given in too easily. He had no idea what she had in mind, but he had not heard the last of this, he was sure.
Ward Gabriel was sick with worry. Why now of all times? Here it was the end of the first week in April, with Pandora’s babies due any time, and he’d just received word of trouble at the mine in Mexico. A cave-in trapped several miners in one of the tunnels. He was needed immediately to supervise the rescue operations. How could he leave Pandora now?
“I’ll be fine,” Pandora told him after finally prying the distressing news out of him. “The babies won’t come for another two weeks at the earliest. Dr. Saenger said the end of April. That gives you plenty of time to make your trip and get back. I promise I’ll behave while you’re away, darling.”
Ward sat beside her bed, holding her hand, stroking her soft palm with his fingertips. He hadn’t had an easy moment since she’d confided in him about the twins. His own mother had died giving birth to Ward and a twin brother, who had lived only a few hours. Now he might have imposed the same fate on Pandora. What would he do if anything happened to her? He couldn’t begin to imagine life without her.
Ward stared into her face. She was so beautiful—lovelier than ever before. Perhaps everything would be all right. Motherhood seemed to agree with her. She’d never looked healthier or stronger or more in bloom. An ache shot through his heart and then his groin. How he longed to hold her and love her again. It had been so long.
Reading his thoughts, Pandora leaned forward to kiss his brow. “It won’t be much longer now, darling. I miss you so!”
In the end, Pandora finally convinced Ward that he must go see to the business of his mine. He left her grudgingly and only after receiving reassurances from old Dr. Saenger.
Pandora settled into her last days before delivery by letting Cassie pamper her. She finished the painting on the lid of her box. She smiled at the thought of twins. One child seemed a miracle to her, two would certainly be a double blessing.
On the morning of April tenth, Angelica waited until Jacob had left for his office. Donning her widow’s weeds, she set out for her father-in-law’s house, where he still maintained his office.
The converted back parlor, which was usually filled with patients waiting to see old Dr. Saenger, was conspicuously empty this morning. White-haired Mrs. Kuntz, who kept his records and collected his bills, stopped Angelica from entering his private office.
“The doctor isn’t seeing patients this morning. He’s not feeling well. One of his heart spells, I’m afraid.” She peered over her spectacles, trying to see through Angelica’s heavy veil.
“I’m not here for medical advice,” Angelica told the woman. “This is a matter of an extremely private nature.” She swept past the woman, not even bothering to knock on the doctor’s door.
“I must speak with you now,” she said to the pale, ill-looking man at the desk.
Recognizing his daughter-in-law’s voice, Dr. Saenger waved the flustered Mrs. Kuntz away and rose to shut the door.
“Won’t you have a seat, Angelica?” he offered in a tired but polite voice. “Actually, I’ve been expecting to see you. I’m surprised you waited so long.”
“Jacob told you I was back? I should have guessed.” She sat down across from him and drew up her veil. “If you expected me, then you must know why I’m here.”
Dr. Saenger nodded. “Jacob refused you. There’s no sense wasting my time or yours because I won’t be a party to this either.” He frowned at her and leaned forward. “Jacob said that you had agreed to forget this madness. He also told me that he didn’t believe you when you gave him your promise.”
The pain around Dr. Saenger’s heart had increased. His daughter-in-law’s visit wasn’t helping matters any. He had vowed to maintain control, but suddenly he felt compelled to let her know exactly what he thought of her. “Let me tell you now, young woman, that just because you want a baby doesn’t give you the right to demand such a horrible crime from my son. You’ve treated him miserably from the start—lying, cheating, demanding everything in the world. You’re a bad one! I’ve known it all along. Why my Jacob married you instead of your sweet cousin is something I will never understand. The good are rewarded, Angelica, but the wicked are forced to pay for their sins. Perhaps that’s why you remain childless while Pandora awaits the birth of her twins.”
“Twins?” Angelica gasped. Her mind flew suddenly in a dozen different directions at once. She thought of the daintily appointed nursery at the house on 13th Street—the dimity curtains, the white wicker furniture, the empty crib. Then her thoughts went to Pandora—huge with child, carrying two babies, enough to fill her own empty nest. She glanced up at her father-in-
law. He was indeed ill this morning and his fiery lecture had taken its toll. His face was the color of wallpaper paste; his eyes were dull and filled with pain. His breathing seemed labored. Angelica’s gaze shifted to the bottle of pills he took for his heart ailment, sitting there within reach on the corner of the desk.
She rose suddenly, as if she meant to leave. Turning abruptly, she let her cape sweep the edge of the desk, knocking the pills to the floor. With the toe of her shoe, she nudged the bottle out of sight under the rug.
She didn’t leave. Instead, she turned back to Dr. Saenger. “I haven’t come to argue with you or to hear what you think of me. Frankly, I don’t care. I’ve had enough lectures from your son to last me a lifetime. In fact, I’ve come to tell you that I’ve had quite a belly-full of your dear Jacob. Our marriage was doomed from the start. I know about his pretty little whore in Postoffice Street. I’ve decided to divorce him on grounds of adultery.”
She watched the old man’s face closely, feeling the warmth of triumph in her breast. At first he looked startled, then disbelieving, one hand clutched at his chest as he opened his mouth to speak.
The effort of the words took a great toll on him. “No, Angelica. You wouldn’t do that to him. Think of the scandal. You’re his wife for better or for worse. You can still have a child. No divorce, please…”
Angelica tossed her head defiantly and stared at the old doctor with a look to kill. “I’ve decided I don’t want a child of my own—not if Jacob is the father. I don’t love him. How could I possibly love a baby he had fathered? That is, if he is even capable, which I doubt. No, a divorce is what I want and a divorce is what I shall have! Your son can go to hell without me!”
Dr. Saenger’s face flushed with rage, then drained of all color. Frantically, he reached out for his pills, but found only empty air as he slumped across the desk.
“Call Mrs. Kuntz,” he choked out. “My medicine…”
Angelica smiled down at the ailing man. “Aren’t you feeling well, Father dear?”
“Please…” he gasped.
“I’m leaving. I’ll send Mrs. Kuntz in on my way out.” She smiled at him and her blue eyes flashed like the Arctic sun striking an iceberg. “Such a sudden attack—I do hope it was nothing I said.”
Angelica informed Mrs. Kuntz that the doctor needed her. Without waiting another moment, she swept out of the house and headed home, glowing with triumph under her long, black veil.
Old Dr. Saenger would not be delivering babies anytime soon. Jacob would be forced to take over those duties for him, smoothing the way for Angelica. The strait-laced old man might have presented a problem, but Angelica knew how to manipulate her husband. Jacob would do as she commanded!
Long before Angelica had set out for her visit with Dr. Saenger, Pandora realized her time had come. In the hours before dawn, she tried to deny the pains. She had promised Ward that she would wait for his return. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other ideas.
Cassie came in with her mistress’s breakfast tray to find Pandora’s face a mask of agony.
“Lord, help us!” she cried, slamming the tray down on the nearest table and running to the bed. “It ain’t time yet, Miss Pan!”
Pandora managed a weak laugh. “Oh, yes it is! You’d best call Dr. Saenger right now, Cassie. I’m afraid these babies are rather anxious to get out into the world.”
Muttering frantically, Cassie fled to the study to telephone the doctor. When Mrs. Kuntz finally answered the doctor’s phone, she sounded as hysterical as Pandora’s maid.
“No, the doctor cannot come. He is ill, they’re taking him to the hospital now.”
“What I’m supposed to do, then?” Cassie wailed into the receiver. “Miss Pandora’s fixing to have her babies. I got to have a doctor over here now!”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. Call someone else. I must go to Dr. Saenger.” Then Mrs. Kuntz abruptly hung up on Cassie.
Cassie hurried back to the bedroom to see how Pandora was. She had no training in midwifery and the only other doctor she could think of was Jacob Saenger.
“Is he coming?” Pandora demanded, realizing by the frequency of the pains that there was no time to lose.
Cassie shook her head and rolled her eyes as she explained their predicament. “What can we do?” she moaned.
Pandora clutched her belly and gritted her teeth, trying desperately not to scream as another contraction gripped her body. “Call Jacob,” she managed. “Quickly, Cass!”
“Oh, God, no,” Jacob whispered into the telephone.
Less than an hour ago his father had been rushed to the hospital. He’d been unable to leave his office until he’d finished splinting a ten-year-old boy’s broken leg. Now this. Cassie, hysterical on the phone, sobbing to him that Miss Pan was having her babies!
Jacob allowed himself only a moment to remember that this was the woman he’d hoped would bear his own children—the woman he wished he had married. He could not afford to ponder such things right now. Pandora was simply a patient—a patient who desperately needed his help.
“I have an emergency,” he told the people waiting in his office. “Leave your names with my nurse and come back later. I’m sorry.”
Within minutes of Cassie’s frantic call, Jacob was pounding the knocker on the massive front door of the Gabriel castle. One of the servants opened it immediately and showed him upstairs. Some of Jacob’s panic fled when he saw Pandora, lying propped up on pillows in her huge bed, looking tired and in pain, but smiling bravely.
“Thank God I made it in time,” he said, hurrying over to her.
She laughed softly. “I’ll second that! How’s your father?”
“‘Holding his own,’ is all they’ll say at the hospital. What about you?” He was busy now, taking her pulse, listening to her heart, tossing instructions over his shoulder to Cassie.
“I’m much better now that you’re here, Jacob. I was beginning to get nervous. Things seem to be happening so quickly.”
Jacob looked into Pandora’s eyes for a moment, allowing her a fleeting glimpse of his own nervousness. “I’m sorry my father couldn’t be here,” he whispered. “This can’t be easy for you.”
“Nor you, Jacob,” she returned. “But I didn’t know who else to call.”
“You did the right thing. No one will take better care of you and these babies than I will. No one else would feel as deeply…” He broke off, knowing that he was about to go too far.
Three hours later, Pandora lay in bed, beaming down into the two tiny, red faces of her twin daughters. She kissed each girl on the forehead, then held out her hand to Jacob.
He squeezed her fingers warmly and beamed down at the three of them. “I never saw a lovelier sight, Pandora. I’m so proud of you.”
“You should be equally proud of yourself, Jacob,” she told him. “It isn’t every day that a doctor brings two beautiful babies into the world. No one could have managed it better,” she assured him. “Thank you, Jacob. With all my heart, I thank you.”
“Have you thought of names for your young ladies yet?” Jacob asked, embarrassed by Pandora’s gratitude and wanting to get on a safer topic.
She smiled down at her daughters. “Ward and I talked about that before he left. We decided that if they were girls, we would call them Miriam and Meraiah.” She glanced up at Jacob with a bewildered expression. “But which is which? They are identical!”
He laughed. “I supposed you’ll have to tie a different color ribbon around their wrists or something of that sort until they develop their individual personalities.”
Just then a soft knock at the bedroom door made both of them turn. Jacob frowned, but Pandora smiled her welcome.
“Angelica, I didn’t know you were back in Galveston. How nice to see you,” Pandora said.
Jacob stared at his wife, hardly able to believe his eyes. Gone was her black costume and with it her hateful expression. She was dressed in a
becoming spring gown of pale blue to match her eyes. Her face shone with innocent pleasure at the sight of her cousin and the two newborns.
Angelica hurried to the bed and kissed Pandora’s cheek. “My, my, but you and my dear husband have done a fine morning’s work. Just look at those two beauties. Pandora, I’m so happy for you.”
Suddenly, Pandora lost her smile as her eyes took in the other woman’s slender waist. “Angelica, what about your baby?” she asked softly, not certain if the tidings would be happy or sad.
Angelica looked down and she shook her head gently. “I lost it,” she whispered. “While I was away.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Pandora sympathized. “Jacob didn’t tell me.”
Angelica forced her sweetest smile. “I asked him not to. I’m terribly superstituous; I was afraid it might bring you bad luck.”
“It was kind of you to be concerned,” Pandora answered.
Jacob stood back, silent, observing his wife with new respect for her acting abilities. What was she up to now? He couldn’t begin to guess.
Angelica turned to Jacob, her arms open to embrace him. She went to him and kissed his cheek affectionately. “I just found out about your father, darling. I do hope it isn’t as serious as it sounds. I’ve been to the hospital, but they wouldn’t let me see him.”
“We’ll go there from here and see what we can find out about his condition, Angelica.” He stared down at her, puzzled. “That is, if you have nothing more pressing.”
Angelica turned back to Pandora and the twins. “Well, I had planned to visit here for a bit.”
Ah, here it comes! Jacob thought. She means to wait for the right moment and then steal away with one of the twins. I should have guessed, he told himself.
“But I’m sure Pandora needs to rest,” Angelica continued. “We can go to the hospital and I’ll come back at a more convenient time.”
Jacob stared at his wife, dumbfounded. Had something happened to snap Angelica out of her madness?
Forever, For Love Page 31
