On a warm day Denby borrowed a bicycle built for two from a friend and they pedaled with a hamper into the country for a feast of cold chicken and soda pop and sandwiches. Seated on newspapers—the “funnies,” which had made their debut in a New York paper the year before and to which Denby was passionately addicted—on the damp ground, Roxanne munched the fried chicken Denby’s mother had prepared for them. She listened as Denby told her that his older brother was getting married at the end of the month. The brother also wanted to expand the shop and become competitive by making a cheap grade of gloves. Denby twirled his silky brown moustache fiercely. He disagreed; he wanted to continue to cater to the carriage trade. Roxanne smiled at him indulgently. Intense Denby, with his aristocratic bent, would always wish to cater to the carriage trade.
Denby called for her frequently at Mrs. De Quincy’s decaying mansion. He took her to a music hall, and out to dinner. On a Sunday afternoon he rented a rig and they drove through the narrow winding roads of the lush Greenspring Valley, admiring the new homes going up there—large villas, gigantic “cottages,” Tudor-style mansions. But he did not take her to his home.
Once he took her to a fair, a dusty, crowded, cheerful place. They rode the big ferris wheel and walked through the sawdust, ate cotton candy and visited a gypsy fortune teller in a tent.
“You will go far,” the gypsy told Denby, and he looked pleased.
When Roxanne turned away, saying lightly, “I don’t want to know my future,” Denby seized her hand and said, “Ah, tell us. What of Roxanne?”
Frowning, the old gypsy woman bent over Roxanne’s hand. “Your fate will be decided in a city with seven hills,” she said at last.
“Cincinnati!” crowed Denby, who had once visited a cousin there.
“Rome!” exclaimed Roxanne, remembering that Baltimore’s “best” families often made the Grand Tour.
Neither of them remembered that San Francisco was built on seven hills.
Several times Denby asked her to marry him. Always, she patted his hand with a sigh and turned him down. She liked Denby, but she did not love him. And she had promised Gavin she would wait.
Mrs. Hollister called again—this time, upset—to tell Roxanne that people had noticed her going about with the young glover; some of them might tell Mr. Gavin and then he’d be upset.
Roxanne, who thought that might well be true, thanked Mrs. Hollister coolly and the woman departed.
That afternoon when Denby took her out, she made a point of having him drive slowly by the Mt. Vernon Place house. Mrs. Hollister came out just as they were passing, and Roxanne nodded serenely. The housekeeper colored and scurried back into the house.
She did not call on Roxanne again.
For some reason Mrs. Hollister’s warning had stirred Roxanne’s loneliness again, and she found herself thinking about her grandmother’s home in a kind of heartsick way. In wistful daydreams she walked again beneath overhanging live oaks with drifting beards of the mysterious gray Spanish moss, climbed the dunes, amid blowing grasses and rustling palms, of windswept Savannah Beach. But it was not the sultry soft-voiced southern city for which she yearned the most, and sometimes at night, tossing restless on her big square bed, she admitted it. It was her lost girlhood, her old carefree life, her sure confidence that when she grew up everything was going to be all right. It was for that she mourned.
She tried not to think of Rhodes, wherever he might be. But she found herself thinking of him anyway, and wondering what arms enfolded him now. She imagined him reclining on long verandahs, a tall drink in his hand, his long legs propped on the railing. Beside him sat a sloe-eyed beauty, while in the distance the Virginia Lass rode at anchor. At other times she saw him sprawled on the moonlit coral sand of countless palm-fringed islands with countless golden-skinned sirens lolling in the lazy circle of his arms.
She hated herself for these imaginings, but they would not go away. Even though she reminded herself of how lustfully and evilly he had used her. She would be revenged on him one day! she told herself, hands clenched, dry sobs wracking her throat. And when she had brought him down, this bitter yearning would turn to sweet contemptuous laughter, this ache in her heart would cease . . . and she would no longer love him.
At the end of May, Denby’s older brother got married. Roxanne did not attend the wedding—was not invited, in fact. She gathered there had been a hot family discussion over her exclusion, for Denby’s face flamed and he looked self-conscious when he muttered the news to her.
In mid-June, Gavin returned to Baltimore and came to call. It was a hot, sultry day with the promise of rain—a day Roxanne would always remember.
He arrived impeccably dressed, looking tall and serious. His face was more angular than ever; Roxanne was reminded of a hunting animal on the scent. She had decided in advance what her attitude would be when he returned: she would be cool, mocking, restrained—let him pursue.
As she let him in, she said, “I was beginning to think you’d taken root in Boston and were never coming home.”
He stood there surveying her from head to foot, and Roxanne was glad she was wearing her elegant new beige walking suit.
“I missed you,” he said abruptly, and bent to kiss her. She turned her head slightly to present her cheek to him and beckoned him to a rosewood chair. His keen eyes narrowed and he squared his shoulders slightly, as if deciding this might be a difficult business after all. They made small talk while the maid brought tea. Then Gavin sat at his ease, balancing his cup, his gaze admiring the picture Roxanne made as she poured the tea.
“I had forgotten how beautiful you are,” he murmured. “You light up the room. It is all I can do not to sweep that teaset aside and take you by force.”
She smiled at him over the teapot, but her gaze was level. “There is no need to send Mrs. Hollister to see me again.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand. I sent Mrs. Hollister to see if we could make you more comfortable—I left those instructions with her before I went to Boston.”
“I think you sent her to make me realize how fortunate was my lot.”
He sat back and smiled broadly. “How penetrating you are, Roxanne. Yes, I will admit that crossed my mind too.”
“But you see, Gavin, I have no intention of growing old as a handsome housekeeper in your handsome house—taking orders from your wife, whoever she may be.”
“You will be the wife of my heart.” His voice was deep as he said it, and for a moment her heart stilled. She had begun to think he was playing her false, he had stayed away so long.
He put down his cup and, walking purposefully around the small tea table that separated them, leaned down to sniff the perfume of her hair. “So lovely . . .” he murmured. He took her chin with one finger and smiled into her eyes.
“So you’ve often told me.” Her voice was composed. Now it’s coming, she thought, her grip on the chair arms tightening. The proposal. And I will say yes.
“I want you to be happy, Roxanne,” he said huskily. “I want us to be together.”
She smiled, waiting.
“We are so right for each other,” he added, touching her slender forearm, his fingers moving caressingly along it to her shoulder. She did not resist, but sat proudly, looking into his eyes. In her heart was a terrible tumult as, unbidden, the memory of Rhodes’s smiling face returned to haunt her. “I have an old dream,” said Gavin. “It is a dream I have had as long as I can remember: to make the Coulter Line foremost in the world. To do that we must convert to steam. It will take a large bankroll.”
“You have control of Clarissa’s money,” she pointed out boldly.
“It is not enough.” He sighed.
“And all that your father left you.”
“My father died in debt,” he said bitterly. “He was pig-headed, stubborn.”
She had not known that. Somehow she had imagined inexhaustible funds behind the facade of wealth the Coulters presented.
“Do you like your roo
ms?” he asked abruptly.
She blinked. “They are very nice,” she said cautiously.
He cast a restless look around him. “I could have the furniture brought over from Rhodes’s room, if you like.” He turned and gazed at her full in the face; his eyes were inscrutable. “Or you could move back into the house,” he said.
Her arms gripped the chair. “Gavin,” she said, puzzled. “What are you offering me?”
His intense expression deepened until she felt herself held like a snake by those eyes. “I offer you my heart,” he said. “Which you have had from the first moment you walked into the house.”
“And—?”
“Try to understand, Roxanne. I need financing. It will take a vast sum to change the Coulter Line from an out-of-date hodgepodge of sailing craft to a modern steamship line—”
“Gavin,” she interrupted in alarm, half rising from her chair. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“That I love you,” he said. “And that I was married in Boston ten days ago.”
A dizzy feeling swept over Roxanne.
“Married!” she cried. “While I sat here waiting for you?”
“It will make no difference between us,” he said desperately.
“No difference?”
“Roxanne, try to understand,” he pleaded. “The Foster Iron Works is a huge enterprise—and Janice Foster’s father owns a bank as well. It will be enough. And then, Roxanne, you and I—”
“Can have a backstairs relationship? Is that what you have in mind, Gavin? You can say good night to your wife in her front bedroom and creep up the back stairs to mine?” Her voice was so bitter he flinched before it.
“I did not mean that!” he cried.
“It does not matter what you meant,” she shouted. “I have had enough of the Coulters—you and your brother!”
“Rhodes is not my brother.”
“Brother or no, you are cut from the same bolt of cloth! You are as bad as he! No, you are worse! I will have nothing to do with you, do you hear?”
He straightened to his considerable height. He looked angry. “I would remind you,” he said, “that you are very young and that you have no resources of your own. If you leave here, you will end up elsewhere in the very way you describe—or on the street. Remember that what you have, I have given you. That very dress on your back—”
It was the wrong thing to have said. Flushed with rage, Roxanne drew herself up too. “Since this dress belongs to you, I will take it off! Here and now!” she flashed. And grasping the throat of her soft lingerie blouse, she tore it straight down, pearl buttons flying. She tugged off her jacket and threw it at him.
Gavin was alarmed at the wildness of her gestures. “Roxanne, please,” he cried, “you are not Mary Bridey. I would not treat you as a chambermaid, but as a lady!”
She stood stonelike as slowly that filtered through her skull. I would not treat you as a chambermaid. . . .
Suddenly a great white light seemed to burst over her. It fixed Gavin in its blinding glare. “Mary Bridey was your girl,” she whispered, eyes widening. “Not Rhodes’s —yours. You got her in trouble and left her to die alone! And lied to me to turn me against Rhodes!”
He shrugged, looking sullen. “What does it matter now?” he asked. “What has she to do with us, Roxanne?”
“To do with us? When I might have married Rhodes? You drove us apart by lying about her!” Her voice rose in passion. She ran to the fireplace, seized a poker and brandished it. “Get out!” she screamed. “Out of my sight!”
Prudently, Gavin retreated to the door. She gave him a hard push and slammed it after him.
“Roxanne.” He knocked on the door, beseeching her to open it. “Roxanne, let me try to make you understand. It is only for a while. We—”
For answer she flung the heavy poker at the door with such force that it almost split the door panels. There was a silence on the other side and then the sound of footsteps going down the stairs.
Breathing hard, Roxanne stood where she was and looked at the wall. But she did not see it. Instead she saw a kind of blackness that represented the future Gavin offered her.
For a bitter moment she thought of Rhodes. Rhodes was forever lost to her, his bright image tarnished. For, whatever forces had driven him, even if she had goaded him past reason, she could never forgive him for that cruel attack or for rejecting her later. A sob tore from her throat. Gavin had done much more than dupe her with his lies—he had destroyed Rhodes for her, and for that she could never forgive him.
And now, if she did not do something, she would have to bend as a willow wand to Gavin’s will.
She brought her clenched fist down on the back of a rosewood chair with a blow that numbed her fingers. She would not let it happen!
With trembling hands, she pulled on her best pair of white kid gloves, almost splitting them in her haste, jammed her hat on her head, pulled her coat on over her torn blouse. Then more slowly, she took all of them off, and with a thoughtful expression stopped and combed her hair carefully. She dressed herself in the gray suit Julie had given her, the gloves Denby had given her for Christmas—both a bit shabby from much wear—and hurried down to Barrington’s. She took with her nothing of Gavin’s.
Denby was working alone and late. He was about to close the shop, but stopped in surprise when the bell above the front door tinkled to announce a customer. He looked up from arranging a display of tasseled and beaded gloves to see Roxanne in the doorway.
Her eyes still bright with the fury she felt inwardly, she gave him a brilliant smile—and her gloved hand, which Denby bowed over and kissed with all the grace of a diplomat.
“Denby,” she said bluntly, “do you still want to marry me?”
Joy leaped in his eyes. “You mean it?” he stammered. “You’d marry me, Roxanne?”
“Yes. On one condition: That you will take me far away from here. I will marry you when we reach wherever we’re going.”
Denby stared at her. “Wherever we’re going?”
“Yes. You once said you’d like to open a shop somewhere else. Have you changed your mind?”
He shook his head and his voice was hoarse. “I’ve not changed it. And I’ve been thinking of removing from here because the shop’s too small for both my brother and myself. He’s offered to buy my share. But marry me here, Roxanne, and then I’ll take you wherever you wish. With you beside me I can do anything.”
She frowned. “No—no, Denby. There’s something you don’t know. My name isn’t Willis—it’s Rossiter. I was born in Augusta, Georgia. I ran away from—from a difficult situation with relatives out west and assumed the name of another woman. Gavin Coulter knows that and he could prosecute me for impersonation and for stealing Mary Willis’s ticket if—”
“Hush.” Denby took her in his arms, cradled her. “It doesn’t matter, Roxanne. I don’t care what your name is. And—” he held her off at arm’s length and his boyish smile flashed—“I’ll take you back to Augusta where you were born! That’s where we’ll go!”
“Oh, Denby, would you?” Caught up by his exultant mood, she agreed that Augusta seemed the answer to everything.
“I’ll take you home now,” he said, “and in the morning we—”
“No,” she said on a note of desperation. “I’m not going back there, Denby. Not ever.”
“But your things!”
“I’ve brought them all.” She indicated the little valise Julie had given her. “All that really belongs to me is in here. Don’t—don’t make me wait to marry you, Denby. Pressure will be brought on me to change my mind. I don’t know what I might do.”
He looked alarmed. “We’ll be married tonight!” he cried. “We’ll find somebody who’ll marry us tonight!”
There was one more thing. Before she married him, she must tell him she was not a virgin. She drew a deep breath. “Denby, there’s one other thing you don’t know about me. I—”
“I don’t want to know,” h
e said grandly. “I don’t care if you robbed a bank or shot the governor!”
“It’s nothing like that,” she said. “I-—”
He silenced her with a kiss. A very long kiss. She felt her blood stir a little.
“Roxanne, believe me.” Suddenly dark and intense, Denby’s hazel eyes looked deep into her own. “I don’t care what your name is or what you’ve done. I love you anyway.”
She smiled at him, a timid newly-trusting smile. I love you anyway. Denby had immediately won her heart by saying that.
“Give me an hour, Roxanne. I’ve got to get some money and pack a bag—and we’ll be off.”
Alone now, Roxanne leaned against the counter and closed her eyes.
She had made her decision, and she was committed. To Denby.
She would be his wife.
Book II
The Reckless Woman
Part One:
Augusta, Georgia
1896-1897
Chapter 19
Roxanne stared out the grimy window as the train roared south through perfumed meadows and swaying trees. But the coal-fired engine carried its own scent, as well as hot cinders and smoke to blacken the breeze. The last time she had ridden a train, she mused, she had been a hunted woman; now she was a bride with her wedding night behind her.
Yesterday’s events drifted like smoke through her mind: waiting for Denby in the shop. The hour had lengthened to two and she’d begun to wonder if Denby had changed his mind and was afraid to tell her. Something in her had brightened at the thought but it was immediately quenched. From upstairs she had heard occasional loud voices. Finally, Denby’s mother, a paisley shawl clutched around her, had burst into the room.
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