“I know, sweetheart. I know.”
Emotions clogged Chase’s throat as he gently mopped Cara’s fevered brow and cheeks. She was burning up with fever. If it didn’t break soon, she would surely die. Setting aside the cloth as she drifted back into a troubled sleep, he placed a fleeting kiss upon the pale brow and tiptoed out of the room.
Downstairs, a somber Chase consulted with the doctor, and the argument that followed had both men shouting at the tops of their lungs. The doctor wanted to hear nothing about an Indian remedy to lower the fever. He didn’t care if Chase had seen it used successfully. He didn’t care if Chase and his men had administered the cure hundreds of times. He refused to risk killing her with some redskin concoction. The young doctor then challenged Chase’s right even to be involved in her care, and Asa had to step between the two to keep Chase from pounding a fist in the physician’s face.
All of Asa and Sophie’s efforts to calm them down were futile. Chase shouted and the doctor threatened Chase with the law. It was Chase who’d finally had enough. He pushed everyone aside and angrily proceeded back up the stairs. He had no intention of letting the doctor’s ignorance and prejudice kill Cara.
When he opened her door and stepped into the silent room, some of his anger drained away. He walked over and, careful not to jostle her unnecessarily, lifted her slight weight, covering and all, into his strong arms. He kissed her forehead tenderly and started walking. He didn’t stop to reply to the outraged questions of Sophie and the others. Down the stairs he went, quilts trailing, Sophie, Asa, and the doctor running behind him.
The cold November air bit his cheeks, but he paid it no mind. His concern centered on getting Cara to the Sutton Hotel where he could personally see to her; he knew he could have stayed at Sophie’s, but his anger was ruling now.
Chase gave polite nods to the curious townspeople who turned and stared at the small, noisy procession, but he didn’t stop. Only when he happened upon Sybil Whitfield, the reverend’s wife, did he halt.
“Mrs. Whitfield.”
“Sergeant Jefferson.”
“I’m on my way to the hotel. Will you and your husband visit me at your earliest convenience?”
He didn’t wait for an answer.
People began to gather, and once again events surrounding the ex-schoolteacher put the town in an uproar.
Inside the hotel, Chase barked at the attendant behind the desk to get Virginia. He obeyed, quickly. When Virginia stepped out, Chase didn’t wait for her to finish her greeting. “I want your biggest suite, and I want it now.”
She took one look at his face and the bundle in his arms, and obeyed without a word.
Inside the suite, Chase placed his light burden down on the bed and made sure she was covered adequately. He then removed from his belt the small rawhide bag he always wore and shook took out the pieces of willow bark inside. The bark was one of the many plant medicinals the Indians used. Chase and his men relied heavily on those few roots and herbs the Indians had taught them to find and prepare, especially since the Tenth was not high on the army’s list of units receiving medical shipments. Besides, the remedies worked. Had it not been for “redskin concoctions,” a lot more of his men would be dead today from wounds, infections, and the parasites that lived in fouled lakes and streams. With a drink made from this bark, Cara would have a fighting chance.
Downstairs, Chase found Asa, Sophie, the irate Dr. Johnson, and the Whitfields talking quietly with Virginia Sutton. He dismissed the doctor, told Virginia to wait, and sent the others up to the suite with Cara. He made Virginia take him to the kitchen. Once there he gave her and her staff specific instructions as to how the tender inner bark should be steeped. He also asked that a thin vegetable broth be kept hot for Cara day and night. He slapped down five gold double eagles, one hundred dollars, on the counter to ensure his wishes would be followed, and walked out.
Chase marched into the suite and declared his intent. “I want to marry her. Now.”
“You can’t,” Sophie said. “Wait until she’s well. She can’t even speak her vows.”
“Now, Sophie. The reverend’s wife can say her vows.”
Silence fell, broken at last by Sybil. “Sergeant, you can’t be serious. I don’t even know if what you’re proposing is legal.”
“I don’t care. Either marry us, or what little bit of reputation she has left won’t be worth a damn, because I’m going to be staying in this suite with her until she either recovers or dies.”
The ceremony did not take long. Sybil did speak Cara’s vows, and, when the Reverend closed the Bible and pronounced the deed done, Chase walked them all to the door. Sybil, never one to bite her tongue, had something to say before he ushered them out. “You’re very angry now, Sergeant. I hope you won’t use this marriage to punish our Cara. She has just lost a child.”
“So have I, Mrs. Whitfield. So I really don’t need your advice.”
Sophie gasped. “Chase!”
Chase turned to Asa. “Take Sophie home, Asa.”
For three days Chase spoon-fed Cara the bark tea and thin broth. He’d moved her from the bed to a pallet he’d had the hotel staff place on the floor in front of the room’s big fireplace. Having her near the fire made the task of sponging her down safer. In her already weakened state the last thing she needed was to get chilled, maybe contract pneumonia, but he had to sponge her down to lower the fever. On the first night, she put up a feeble, delirium-fed attempt to fight him off when he began to remove her sweat-drenched gown. Moans accented her struggles, but he calmed her by speaking softly and reassuringly, all the while stroking her forehead with a cool cloth. He couldn’t be certain she understood, but moments later she drifted back to sleep.
He saw to her every need and wouldn’t let another soul touch her. He ignored Sophie’s offers to sit with Cara while he got some rest; after the second day she grew tired of arguing and let the matter drop.
At night, when darkness filled the rooms, he watched his wife sleep and played the flute. The mournful, emotion-laced notes of the siyotanka said the words he could not. The melancholy beauty of the music floated pure in the after-midnight silence of the hotel, touching all who heard it with its despair, pain, and grief. And each dawn, when light began to fill the room, he put away the flute and gave thanks that Cara had been granted another day.
On the night of the fourth day, the sounds of Cara stirring roused him from half sleep. Every night she’d had nightmares about her grandfather’s death, and every night Chase had held her in his arms until the demons passed. Tonight he sensed something different about her fretfulness. Shaking himself to fuller awareness, he took the flute from his lap and made his way over to where she lay before the fire.
Cara decided she must be dreaming. Why else would Chase Jefferson be kneeling beside her? That would also account for the siyotanka music she’d heard. She’d dreamed of both many times. Could one dream having a throat as parched as hers felt? As she forced her cottony mind to make sense of it all, she struggled to raise herself to a sitting position, winced with the pain, and heard him say, “Easy now.” He sounded so real! “Welcome back to the land of the living,” he added.
Cara focused on his eyes, sparkling at her in the dark, and knew this was no dream. She also noted for the first time the absolute unfamiliarity of the room. “Where am I? Oh, water first, please . . .”
He obliged, helping her sit up to sip from the cup he held. “We’re at the Sutton Hotel.”
After she’d drunk all she could, he took the cup from her lips and eased her back down. She felt as weak as a newborn. “Why are we here?”
“So I can take care of you.”
For Cara, it all came back in a rush: Miles, the horse . . . her baby. “I lost the baby, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
Even in the faint light he could see the tears start rolling down her cheeks. She turned to the fire. “Why are you here?”
“To make an honest woman of you.”
“Too late. It’s already done.”
His words made the hair on the back of her neck rise. She swung her head in his direction.
“The Reverend Whitfield married us a few days ago.”
“What?” The outburst brought pain. He moved to her aid, but her raised hand stopped him. When the crisis passed, Cara tried again, more calmly, to question him. “Now, what did you say?”
“Maybe we should put this off until you’re stronger.”
“Chase, tell me.”
He told her.
“I don’t believe this,” she stated flatly. “Sophie put you up to this, I’ll bet. Well, we’ll just get it annulled. It can’t be legal anyway.”
“It was my idea.”
Cara looked at him as if he’d grown a new head. “Why? You don’t want to be married to me, and I don’t want to be married to you.”
Chase’s jaw tightened. “I’m not exactly thrilled about all this, either.”
As much as she loved him, she refused to be in a loveless marriage. He’d only hate her in the end. “Then ride out. I can take care of myself.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I would. It would save us both a lot of grief.”
Despite the rising tension in the room, a part of Chase could not help but smile. This woman had no intention of dying, not now. It made him happy on another level, too, because when she got strong enough, he planned on strangling her for her treachery.
Chase’s prediction about her recovery proved correct. Two days later, Cara was sitting up in bed receiving visitors. She had little or nothing to say to her husband, and her attitude seemed to suit him fine.
Cara began to have second thoughts, however, after listening to Sophie’s account of why Cara had awakened here in the hotel instead of in her room back at the boardinghouse. When he came in later that day with a tray of lunch, she viewed him in a different light. He’d saved her life. “Did you really carry me through the center of town?”
He set the tray on her quilt-covered lap, then straightened. He viewed her speculatively, as if trying to discern her true motives, never once dropping the mask he’d taken to wearing since her recovery. “Yes. Why?”
She dropped her head, pretending to fuss with her food. “No reason except that Sophie told me how you took care of me. I’m just trying to say thanks.” She looked up. “Thank you, Chase, very much.”
“You’re welcome. Eat.”
He turned and strode out.
After a week of confinement, Cara grew weary of being cooped up. Her strength, although returning, did so slowly, but she wanted very much to go outside and feel the wind on her face, even if it was a cold, November wind.
She begged Chase to take her out.
“No,” he replied brusquely. “You can’t even make it to the water closet and back without breaking out in a sweat. No.”
For the next three days, he kept saying “no.” By the fourth day she’d had it.
When he came to bring her afternoon meal, she was sitting on the edge of the bed doing her best to get dressed. She’d already managed to put on a shirtwaist and skirt, and was now trying to roll on her long black cotton stockings. The efforts had cost her, but she ignored the weakness, her labored breathing, and the fine sheen of sweat glistening on her brow.
“What the hell are you doing?” Chase asked coldly.
“I’m going outside!”
Her efforts to don the hose caused her to pant. She felt faint and, angry and frustrated, threw the offending stockings aside. She’d go without them, just as she’d forgone her undergarments.
Ignoring his critical gaze, Cara pulled on her shoes and gingerly pushed herself upright. Her steadying hand against the wooden bedpost was all that kept her from falling flat on her face. Waves of dizziness passed over her. She shut her eyes until she regained her equilibrium and felt able to move.
“You are a little idiot, do you know that?”
“Either help me or leave,” she shot back.
Shakily, she made her way from the bed. Her legs felt like pudding beneath her. The door to freedom lay only a short few feet away, but it might as well have been in Texas.
Chase caught her just before she fell. When he lifted her up into his arms, she turned her head into his shoulder to hide her tears.
He placed her gently atop the bed, then began to undo the buttons of her shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, you’re soaking wet,” he pointed out. “I’m not going to let you make yourself sick again.”
She made no further protests as he methodically stripped off her blouse and skirt.
Chase could feel his loins slowly hardening at the sight of her lush nakedness. She hadn’t had a stitch on beneath the skirt and blouse; that fact alone should have garnered her a lecture—it was November outside—though at the moment, lecturing her was the farthest thing from his mind. During the long days he’d nursed her he hadn’t looked on her with lust even once. Saving her life had been his only goal. Now, however, all he could see were the ripe globes of her breasts, the curve of her hips that invited his touch, and the blackberry forest at the top of her thighs. “Get under the quilt. I’ll get you a dry gown.”
It took him a moment to find one in the dresser beside the bed.
Cara caught the old gown he tossed her way, looked at it, and said, “Chase, this gown—”
“Put it on.”
Irritated, she complied.
Right away Chase knew he’d made a mistake. It was flannel, yes. It had long sleeves, yes. But it was way too small and didn’t have a single button left. The worn fabric of the bodice fit so snugly, her breasts looked ready to spill out, and the tight-fitting halves barely covered the ring of her nipples. He clamped down on his jaw and closed his eyes.
To Cara’s surprise, he mumbled something about returning later, then left the room.
With a wealth of pillows at her back, Cara sat propped up in bed looking through the window at the falling rain. The dreary late November day matched her mood. It was almost three weeks, since she had awakened with Chase bending over her, and all efforts to convince him, Sophie, and Sybil to let her walk around fell on deaf ears. She needed rest, they kept repeating. She hated being ill, and for most of her life had avoided it. Her only other serious malady had occurred during her first winter at Oberlin when she got the influenza.
Turning away from the window, she sank back into the softness of the pillows. She resented waking up and discovering she was married. That was a decision a woman was supposed to make for herself. She understood Chase had given Sophie and the others little choice that night. But it was ridiculous for him to argue that she would have been compromised by his staying with her in the suite. She was already compromised, for heaven’s sake. Virginia Sutton would not be reoffering the schoolteacher position just because Cara’s name was now Mrs. Chase Jefferson. Cara saw leaving town as the only solution to her problem. She was certain that when Chase came to his senses, he would see how absurd it was for them to be married. At that point they could dissolve this questionable union and go their separate ways. Yes, she still loved him, but he did not love her.
Later, she was mildly surprised to see Chase bringing in her evening meal. She hadn’t seen him in over a week. It seemed that bringing her back to life had been his only goal. Now her care had been turned over to Sophie and Mrs. Whitfield.
“When you’re finished, we need to talk.” He set the tray atop her lap and went out to the sitting room to wait.
While he waited he brooded over the events of the last two weeks. Sophie accused him of having lost his mind taking Cara out into the November wind that day of his return, and she was right. His rash actions could easily have made Cara worse. He still couldn’t explain it, but knew that given the same set of circumstances, he’d do the exact same thing again.
Sophie called the reaction love; Chase didn’t know what to call it. On one hand, he was filled with rage about Cara’s plans to keep the baby a secret; on the other hand, he knew he’d battle the devil himself for that woman in there. He’d nearly bitten Sophie’s head off when she suggested he simply let Cara go. When he tried to explain his obligation to the memory of the child, Sophie had termed his intentions honorable and offered him nothing but praise for accepting his responsibility, but she cautioned him about trying to build a relationship based on anger, revenge, and honor. She further advised him to look deeper within himself for the other reasons he’d been so adamant about marrying a woman he purportedly didn’t love.
“You wanted to talk?” Cara’s emotionless voice broke the silence, and he turned from the fire to see her standing just out of the circle of light. She had on an ankle-length bed coat over her nightgown, but he could barely see the coat for the quilt she’d wrapped around herself to ward off the night’s draft. He hadn’t meant for her to come out here; they could have easily talked in her bedroom. “You shouldn’t be out of bed,” he chided softly.
Before she could reply, he walked over and effortlessly picked her up.
“I wish people would stop treating me like an invalid.”
He didn’t answer.
They crossed the room, and she expected him to place her on the settee near the blazing fire. He did, only he sat down first, keeping her atop his lap. “Hold still,” he warned when she began to fuss. He adjusted the quilt so she’d stay warm.
Cara cold have done without this intimate seating arrangement. She didn’t put it past him to have planned this just to put her off-balance. “Is this intended to distract me?”
“Maybe,” he acknowledged, but his eyes held no teasing and his mouth was grim.
“You wanted to talk?”
“I do, and what I want to say is this: I married you to give you my name. That’s all. I don’t want a wife. I’m a soldier, not a farmer. I haven’t had roots since I was twelve, and pardon my frankness, I don’t plan on growing any now.”
Night Song Page 18
