The Beloved Woman

by Deborah Smith

  “You’re crazier than I thought you were,” he said, staring at her in horrified disbelief.

  “I don’t care what you think of me. Either you marry me or I’ll have my dear, deranged daddy nullify every contract and deed you ever signed in the state of Georgia. You’ll lose everything because you married an Indian. That makes you an Indian, and Indians have no legal rights. My daddy despises you—you’re the only man he can’t humiliate. He’d just love to ruin you.”

  “Let him try. Damn you to hell, you pitiful, scheming lunatic. I couldn’t marry you even if I wanted to. I’m already bound to a wife.” He jabbed a hand toward the cabin door. “Get out of my sight.”

  Amarintha sighed. She’d let him have his rage. She would enjoy it, in fact. “No one knows about your first marriage but me. No one else will ever know it. I won’t tell. You won’t. We’ll marry, we’ll set up housekeeping for a few months, then you can go back to your squaw and never give me a second thought. But I’ll be Mrs. Gallatin—the only Mrs. Gallatin as far as Gold Ridge is concerned. I’ll expect you to build me a nice house and set up a generous bank account in my name.”

  He got up, kicked his chair across the room, then bent over his desk toward her. Was he capable of hitting her, she wondered idly. The thought didn’t bother her a bit. She was adept at dealing with much worse threats.

  “I’ve already got a wife,” he repeated.

  “She need never know you’ve got another one.”

  “I’d rather geld myself than share a bed with you.”

  “I wouldn’t care if you sliced off the whole ugly business. I don’t want your filth inside me.”

  “Dear God, what do you want from a husband, then?”

  “Escape,” she retorted. “A home of my own. A new name. A name for my child.”

  “Your child?”

  She nodded curtly. “I’m just a month along. We’ll be married right away, and no one will pay much attention when the babe’s born a month early.”

  “Who’s bastard would I be givin’ my name to?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  He looked as if he might explode with fury and frustration. “Do you think you can lead me around like a bull with a ring through his nose? I’ve got enough money stashed in New York to keep me rich even if I lost everything I own in this town.”

  “Yes. But what about your partner? What will happen to poor, half-crippled Sam and his family if somebody takes over your holdings?”

  “I’ll look after Sam. He won’t suffer.”

  “Hah. Liar. I see the worry in your eyes, you arrogant fool. Besides, no matter what you arrange for Sam, there’s one thing you most certainly can’t help but lose. The Blue Song land.”

  He slammed a fist onto the desk. His voice came out low and lethal. “Nobody’ll take that land from me.”

  Amarintha smiled. “The law says you’re a Cherokee now. Go out to the Indian territory if you want to own land. My daddy can turn the law to your ruination and have the Blue Song property auctioned off. Believe me, he’s got important friends in this state who’ll help him. He got the governor to put your squaw in the stockade last year.”

  She laughed, watching different expressions cross her husband-to-be’s face. More fury. Despair. Distraction. And finally a grim look that drained all the life out of his eyes.

  “You love that savage so much, you’ll do anything to keep her land for her,” Amarintha said happily. “That’s what I was counting on.”

  * * *

  DEAR WIFE. Have arrived safely in Gold Ridge. Sam has both legs broke, ribs cracked, neck hurt. Looks like a dog run over by a wagon. A long time to get well, but he will make it. Don’t expect me back for two, three months. Write me about all business with our investments. And about yourself, if you have an extra minute.

  YOUR LOYAL HUSBAND, JUSTIS.

  DEAR HUSBAND. I’m very glad to know that you’re loyal. I am loyal also, and now that your business associates have recovered from their shock over me, we are accomplishing a great deal. To sum it all up, you and I are now a bit richer thanks to several real estate negotiations of which I am quite proud. As for myself, I am well and gaining weight. You’ll be pleased, I’m sure.

  YOUR BUSY WIFE.

  KATIE. Sorry not to have written for so long. Work all the time. Sam is not healing as fast as hoped. How was your Thanksgiving? You keep asking what is happening here. Nothing new. Nothing. Think of you often. You must think I forgot you. Will come back, I promise. Visited the B. Song land again last week. I know why you love it. I swear I do. It’s everything to you.

  JUSTIS.

  DEAR LOYAL HUSBAND, who writes very distracted-sounding letters, Thanksgiving was quiet here. I spent the day with Adela and Vittorio. My Spanish is excellent now, thanks to Vittorio’s teaching. He is also teaching me about his country’s food. I love a Mexican pancake he calls tortillas. Goodness! I’m still gaining weight! Don’t be surprised if I’m fat! When are you coming home?

  YOUR HUNGRY WIFE.

  WIFE. Got your letter about the shipping deal. You could be an Astor. The first Cherokee Astor. Don’t ever think I’m not proud of you. Ever. I’m still working hard. Sam not improving too fast. Sorry—looks like I won’t be back for one, two more months. Could tell from your last letter that you are puzzled. You should trust me. Please. Saw your land under a snowfall yesterday. Made me feel good. So pretty. It will always be yours. Really. All of your letters say how fat you’re getting. I think it’s time you stopped eating so much.

  HUSBAND. Spent the New Year’s playing cards with Vittorio and Adela. They are leaving for California soon. I hope not to miss them too badly, especially Vittorio. It surprises me that you never ask about him. Ah, well, you trust me—or have forgotten me. Rebecca writes to say that Sam is well. What am I to think?

  YOUR PARTNER, KATHERINE.

  WIFE. I hope to head back to New York next month. Am settling last problems here. You accuse me of forgetting you because I don’t ask about his Mex royal highness. I trust you, remember? We agreed on that. You trust me too. And you always can.

  JUSTIS.

  KATHERINE SMILED AND patted her stomach as she felt the babe kick. She loved the feeling of companionship from having it nestled inside her. Adela and her large brood, plus Vittorio, were leaving for California in one week. After they departed she’d have too much time to sit and wonder why Justis hadn’t returned yet. She hoped the babe kicked often—she needed the distraction.

  She was six months into her pregnancy and could no longer hide it under cloaks and shawls. Propriety dictated that she disappear from public view until after the babe was born, and she dreaded spending her days in her room growing bored and anxious.

  Someone knocked on the door to the suite. She put a stack of financial reports down and, drawing a large silk shawl around her, hurried to answer. Thomas smiled at her and bowed, then held out a crumpled, dirty packet.

  “I’ve another letter from Georgia for you, ma’am. Looks like this poor thing has been a bad, slow route, but at least it’s here.”

  After he left, Katherine studied the unfamiliar hand that had addressed the letter. The script was a haphazard scrawl, as if the writer had been excited or upset. Something awful had happened to Justis and a stranger was writing to tell her. Terrified, she quickly ripped the seal.

  Katherine frowned in bewilderment as she unfolded a front page from the Gold Ridge Gazette. The poorly typeset little weekly had been a source of some amusement to her. But who would send her a clipping from it? No one knew where she was except for Justis, Rebecca, and Sam, and this wasn’t from one of them. And the clipping was several months old. Bewildering. Then her gaze lit on a somewhat smeared headline halfway down the page:

  Two LEADING CITIZENS ARE MARRIED

  Town’s Biggest Wedding Yet!

  Beside it was written in that strange, unnerving hand: “Your husband is coming home—or is he? His white wife is carrying his child.”

  S
ometime later Katherine was under control enough to make her way upstairs to Adela’s apartments. When the sturdy little Californio saw her face she gasped and came forward, her arms out. “Querida, what is it?”

  Katherine dropped to her knees and buried her face in Adela’s flowing black skirt. “My husband has died,” she whispered.

  BITTER JANUARY WIND whipped Katherine’s cape and stung her face as she stood on the deck of the big square-masted brig watching New York slip away behind her. Vittorio laid his arm around her shoulders in a companionable way.

  “Come below, Catalina,” he called against the rush of wind and snapping of sails. “Adela is worried about you. Mourning is very hard on any woman, but for one who is going to be a mother—”

  “My child will be strong,” Katherine said. She dug her mittened fingers into the deck’s railing. “Strong and perfect.”

  “Yes, yes. In California your bebé will grow up strong and perfect. We will have a priest christen it with a good Spanish name—”

  “A priest?”

  “Of course! Your child must be a Catholic and a citizen of Mexico, as you must be. You will have a new life, a new home. Try to look toward the future. The ship’s safe is full of your gold. You will be a wealthy Californio and live at my rancho as an honored guest.”

  “I have told you already. I cannot live permanently as your guest. I must make my own life.”

  He took her by the shoulders and jerked her around to face him. Katherine was numb inside—except for the occasional movements of the babe, she would have felt completely hollow. The roughness of his touch provoked only a dull curiosity in her, and she puzzled over the cool command in his eyes. She had never seen him look or act this way before.

  “Your life is going to be very different now,” he said loudly, and she couldn’t tell if he was yelling merely because of the wind. He had changed since hearing that—as she continued to explain to everyone—Justis had been killed in a mining accident. Now Vittorio was too sure of himself with her, almost imperious. A small, still-alert part of her brain warned her to be wary of this new side of him.

  “We have a journey of six months ahead of us,” he told her. “It will give you time to contemplate your new position and adjust to it. When we reach California you will have stopped grieving for your husband. You will have the bebé to care for. You will be ready to do what you must.”

  “What I must?” she asked, frowning.

  He shook his head. “No more talk. You should go below to your cabin and rest.”

  “I want to stay here until the coast is out of sight. Alone.” Anger flared even under the smothering mantle of her despair. She would not be controlled by any man ever again.

  Vittorio saw the implacable defiance in her eyes. He stepped back and bowed politely. “As you wish. For now.”

  After he left her she turned toward the fading coastline, her teeth clenched. For now? Forever. She was free, finally free, and she would raise her child as she pleased, in a place where there were fewer rules—or at least different rules—and an enterprising woman with plenty of gold could have her own rancho. Perhaps in California an Indian and her half-breed child might prosper.

  Katherine sagged as a new wave of sorrow tore at her resolve. She needn’t worry about Justis pursuing her; he had bound himself to a new life. He had betrayed and deserted her in a disloyal, dishonorable way that she could never have imagined, and she couldn’t understand how she had misjudged him so much.

  The coast became a blurred line hung with blue-green mist, a color that reminded her of the mountains back home. Home. The Sun Land. She was leaving it very far behind this time. She was going so far toward the sunset that she would never come back. She would no longer exist except in the memory of a man who was now dead to her. Because he would always stand in her soul, she was dead too.

  * * *

  JUSTIS HELD HIS letter—the letter that had arrived at the hotel a week after Katie’s departure—in his hand.

  KATIE. By now you have gotten the damned newspaper story about the marriage. I found out that Amarintha mailed it to you two weeks ago. Forget it. Burn it. I swear I can make you understand. I have never broken my word to you. There are reasons for what happened. I have never spent one night in her bed. Am leaving for Charleston today. Will take a steamer up the coast. See you soon. Believe. Trust. Still Your Loyal Partner—and Husband,

  JUSTIS.

  Thomas continued to stare at him as if a phantom had just strode into the hotel’s grand lobby. “Glory, sir, she told me you were dead,” the porter said for the fifth time. “The poor lady was so despairin’ in the way she acted that I never thought she’d be tellin’ me a lie. Sir, let me bring you something hot to drink before that Irish blood of yours turns to ice. You’re shiverin’ like a two-bit sinner. What did you do, sir, run all the way from your ship? And it sleetin’ like a bitch outdoors!”

  “I wasn’t dead,” Justis said grimly, staring at the letter. “But as good as dead.”

  “She looked like a grievin’ widow, sir. I swear it. It was such a change in her. She’d been so kind of, well, she’d had sort of a glow in the past months.”

  Had she fallen in love with Salazar?

  “But after she got the letter that day—the one that upset her—she took so poor that Mrs. Mendez moved her into the suite with herself. I think that’s when they talked about your wife goin’ to California, sir.”

  Justis groaned inwardly. Whether she loved him or not, her pride had been devastated. She had wanted to be free of him all along, and his so-called marriage to Amarintha had given her a legitimate reason to break their bargain. Still, she must have been sick with hatred for him after reading the newspaper clipping. If he let her go for good, let her start fresh without him, he’d be giving her the most loving, unselfish gift in his soul.

  “What about Vittorio Salazar?” he asked suddenly. “Where was he durin’ all this?”

  The porter turned and vehemently launched a stream of tobacco juice into a spittoon. “Right beside your wife, sir, bein’ the dearest gentleman friend in the world—but still beatin’ up whores at night.”

  Katherine was headed to California in the company of a man she thought she could trust, a man who might see her as something less than a lady now that she had no protection. A man who liked to use women in a way that Justis could picture all too easily at the moment.

  Thomas grabbed his arm. “You look like you’ve met the devil and he’s about to carry you off to hell, sir. Come sit down.”

  Not himself, he thought. Katherine. The devil had her, and she didn’t suspect. “I’m all right,” he told Thomas. “I want to see what personal things she left behind.”

  Thomas shifted awkwardly. “She didn’t take much with her, sir. The rest—includin’ all of your clothes and things—she gave to me. Told me to enjoy what profit I could from ’em. I’m sorry, sir. They’re sold.”

  “Did she give you a gold nugget hung on a leather necklace?”

  “No, sir.”

  She’d never give up her memories of home. He had done the right thing by accepting Amarintha’s god-awful blackmail, and maybe Katie could forgive him for wounding her dignity. After all, the land was the thing she loved, the only thing.

  “You’ll be takin’ a room at the hotel, sir?” Thomas asked.

  Justis shook his head. She would hate him, hate him even more than she did now, but he couldn’t let her go without eliminating Salazar’s danger from her life and explaining the reason behind his marriage to Amarintha. He couldn’t let her go even then. He’d have to see for himself that she hated him and that nothing he could say or do would ever change that.

  He clasped Thomas’s hand in farewell. “I’ll be takin’ the first ship I can get for California.”

  THE WHOLE WORLD was a swaying, creaking nightmare filled with pain. Caught in a squall in the middle of a moonless night, the brig lurched from side to side. The maids staggered about Katherine’s tiny cabin, trying not
to fall down with their lanterns. Adela and one of the children’s nannies kept bumping against the wall. They protested in terse Spanish and crossed themselves fearfully.

  Kneeling on a blanket on the floor beside her narrow bed, Katherine watched the chaotic scene through a haze of exhaustion. She was more aware of her own body than anything else at the moment. Her hair felt enormously heavy hanging in several braided loops between her shoulder blades. She was naked except for a nightgown she’d drawn up beneath her breasts and tied in a knot. Sweat ran from under it and tickled the tight, hypersensitive skin of her swollen belly.

  “Holy saints save us!” one of the maids screamed as the ship rolled again.

  “Amen!” Adela said as she careened off a wall.

  Katherine swayed but remained securely in place. She gripped the bed’s sideboard as another contraction stabbed her.

  “This will be the one!” she said between gritted teeth as she stretched her head back in agony.

  Adela toppled beside her and reached between her legs. “Yes! Push hard! Push hard! Ah! It is here! The little one is here!”

  Katherine collapsed backward as the nanny knelt and caught her. Propping herself up with the woman’s help, Katherine panted for breath as she looked at the blood and gore between her legs. In the center of it, moving weakly in Adela’s hands, was a tiny, wrinkled baby girl.

  “She is so beautiful,” Katherine murmured. Love poured through her, and she was filled with a sense of awe. She had been so professional until this point, so much like a doctor observing her own delivery. Now she was purely a mother, and the sight of her blood-slicked babe with black hair and light eyes made tears slip down her face.

  “Justis,” she moaned softly. “This is our daughter.”

  After the storm finally quieted, Adela and her servants got Katherine and the baby cleaned up and into bed. As Katherine watched her daughter nurse, she vowed to make a wonderful home for the two of them. She would never let anything happen to this miraculous little angel. All the love she had wanted to give Justis was here, cradled close to her heart.