Roxanne retraced her steps and leaned against the door of her living room, feeling suddenly weak.
She had stayed in San Francisco too long. Gavin had trapped her, and this time there would be no escape. She sat down heavily and contemplated the pistol. She had almost killed him. A little goading from Gavin and she would have fired at him point-blank, no matter what the cost. For a long time she sat in that chair and reviewed her life. She sat there until the sun went down, and after, telling Emma to go home—she did not want any dinner.
Night came. The four men outside had been replaced by four others. A changing of the guard.
Thoughtfully, Roxanne undressed and went to bed. She had no fear that Gavin would have her secretly whisked away to his waiting car. That was not his style. He meant to break down her resistance, to bring her, begging and frightened, to his arms.
It would not happen! Her heart was harder now, more steely. She meant to survive.
The next day the roses began arriving again.
All that day Roxanne pondered. The next, she dressed in her honey-beige walking suit and went to see Josie. Two men followed her.
Roxanne was uncertain how Josie would receive her. After her visit to Gavin’s house she had told Josie all about Mary Bridey and how Gavin had lied to her in Baltimore and turned up married. But Josie had felt Roxanne should forgive him.
“A lot of water’s gone over the dam,” she had counseled Roxanne. “And here’s a shipping tycoon wants to give you everything. Why, I had no idea you knew the richest man in San Francisco, Rox!”
When she had told Josie stonily that she would never let Gavin Coulter touch her, Josie had flung out in a temper, and Roxanne had half expected to be evicted from her small town house.
Forgiving Josie, wearing a brilliant red taffeta gown appliqued all over with black lace and jet, received her warmly and seated her by the fireplace in her garish living room. “I guess you know your own mind, Rox,” she sighed. “Me, I’d let bygones be bygones and have Gavin Coulter shower me with diamonds, but since you hate him so . . .”
“He’s blackmailing me now, Josie,” said Roxanne quietly. “He says he’ll have me or see me hang—I can take my choice.”
Josie drew a deep breath, and her ample bodice in its lace and jet quivered. “Them killings back in Nome,” she said in a thoughtful voice.
Roxanne sighed. “You know I never killed anyone in Nome, Josie.”
“Oh, sure,” said Josie indifferently. “I believe you, Rox. Anyway, that Lars fellow deserved to die.”
Roxanne studied her friend. Josie wasn’t fooling her. Josie believed she’d killed Lars—but was justified. And that was what the world would think—except they’d doubt the justification. Ah, Gavin was shrewder than she; he knew which way a jury would bend.
“But I guess you’d better run for it, Rox. While you still can.”
“It’s a bit late for that.” Roxanne’s voice was bitter. “Gavin’s men are guarding me to see that I don’t escape. Two of them followed me over here. Look out the window and you’ll see them.”
“I only see one,” reported Josie, going to the window and carefully peeping through the red drapes. “Maybe you can get out the back way, and get to the station. I’ll give you some money to catch a train out of town.”
Roxanne hurried after Josie to the back. “And there’s the other one,” she said, gesturing at the back courtyard.
“Ah . . .” said Josie on a long-drawn sigh, “So that’s the way of it. Well ... I guess he’s bound to have you, then.” Suddenly her brown eyes narrowed and she laughed. “Hold out for marriage, Rox. That’s the way to bring him down. Spend him bankrupt, accuse him of goin’ out with other women. Marry him, Rox, and make his life a living hell!”
Roxanne looked at Josie in surprise. Was that indeed the way out? Marry Gavin and slam the bedroom door in his face? Marry him and taunt him with her lovers? He had men guarding her now, but as his wife . . . she pondered. Cleverly done, it would work. Although her wild heart revolted at such a travesty of a marriage, she began to see it as a way out. Once she had married him, she could desert him—Gavin would never allow a woman who bore his name to be hauled through the courts; it would be too damaging to his reputation. And Gavin valued his reputation, that much was obvious. She could marry him with a bright smile on her face—and simply disappear. Where she would go would not matter. She would slip away, take a new name.
“I see you’re thinkin’ up mischief, Rox,” chuckled Josie. “I can see it sparklin’ in those big blue eyes.”
Roxanne stood up with decision. Her voice was hard. “I’ve decided to take your advice, Josie. I’m going to marry him.”
“That’s the spirit.” Josie came over and gave her a rollicking slap on the back. “And from the look of you, I wouldn’t want to be in Gavin Coulter’s shoes come your wedding night!”
“No,” murmured Roxanne. “Nobody would.”
Josie’s laughter followed her out to the street where she amazed her guard by saying crisply, “Take me to Mr. Coulter’s office. At once, please.”
Gavin received her warily in his dark-paneled Montgomery Street offices in the Coulter Building, which was situated north of Market in the city’s financial district. On the way there, an even more deadly idea had formed in Roxanne’s brain. She would marry Gavin—but not for flight. Not for Josie’s more heavy-handed methods either. Gavin was so proud, proud of his shipping empire, his grand house on Nob Hill, his showy car, his possessions, even the livery of his servants; it had shown in his arrogant eyes. And how necessary it would be for him to be proud of his wife. . . .
“I have come to offer you my terms,” she said, resting her gloved fingers on the top of his shining mahogany desk.
“Terms?” He seemed thunderstruck. “It is I who offer the terms,” he said dryly.
“No. Revenging yourself on me will not gain you what you desire. What you want is to roll back the clock so that we meet again as we did once before— in Baltimore.”
“I’ll not deny it,” he said softly, and she saw his eyes kindle as they strayed over her figure.
“I have come to tell you that I will not be your mistress, Gavin,” she announced proudly. “I told you that in Baltimore. But—I will marry you.”
He looked a bit startled, and hope gleamed in his eyes. He would have looked somewhat more startled if he had known the plans for a terrible revenge that were forming behind the blue depths of those sapphire eyes.
I will marry you, the devil behind those blue eyes was vowing. First I will make you flaunt me before all of San Francisco, make society accept me by the power of your money and your iron will. And then I will choose some night when you entertain a president or a king, and I will become Klondike Roxie again—a Klondike Roxie worse than ever I was. I will show your friends that you have married a harlot lost to shame. You will not dare to prosecute me for my crimes because it will be the woman who bears your name who would be hanged. You will be forced to suppress rumors of my scarlet ways, to buy off newspapermen, cameramen, servants—oh, / will bring you down. Gavin Coulter, I will bring you down!
Across the desk he looked at her carefully, and then his eyes caught fire. ‘Wife . . .” he murmured. “Yes, what a wife you would make. With your proud bearing and your beauty, I could present you to kings.”
She stood straight and beautiful before him—and inflexible as he. “I will marry you only on one condition, Gavin.”
“Name it,” he said warily.
“That you woo me as you would a lady.”
“You are playing for time,” he said.
She shook her head. “Not so. I ask that you move me to a larger house than the one in which I live, furnish me with my own carriage and a staff of servants, clothes, jewels—that you tell the world, indeed show the world that I am independently wealthy. You must make society respect me. I must be received. And after a suitable interval—a month perhaps—you will give a great ball, and we’ll announce o
ur betrothal.”
“And do you plan a long engagement?” His dark eyes were alight, though his voice was scathing.
Again she shook her head. “I will marry you immediately after the engagement is announced.”
He was puzzled. She could see he was tossing her offer around in his brain, studying it. “It is some trick,” he muttered. “You are planning to fool me, to run away.”
She laughed. “I will have no need to run away.” And to his quizzical look, “I have no wish to die, Gavin. And I know that you would surely hunt me down. But I will not live my life under a cloud of blackmail either. I will have the protection of your name—you would never allow the woman who bore your name to be arrested.”
A smile lit his craggy features. “Checkmate!” he murmured. “At last I understand you. It is a plan worthy of you, Roxanne.”
“It is indeed,” she said with a hard smile. “But until I marry you—not till then will I lie in your arms. Until then you must be content with the stable of fancy women I’m told you keep.”
He frowned, chewing his lip. She guessed he was surprised that she knew about them, but of course Josie was informed about such things.
“And you will keep your bargain, Roxanne?”
“I swear it. On those terms I will become your wife, I will sleep beside you—as long as you wish. But first you must blazen my name across San Francisco, Gavin. You must make the women of the haughty set you frequent accept me—I will accept nothing less.”
He admired her—not just as he always had for her beauty, but for her indomitable spirit. “God, how you match me!” he murmured. “I agree to your terms, Roxanne. But”— his eyes narrowed—“lest it be still a trap, my men will continue to watch you.”
Roxanne shrugged indifferently. “That pleases me. They will serve as bodyguards.”
With enthusiasm, Gavin poured out drinks from the crystal decanter on a side table. Roxanne took one in gloved fingers. Gavin lifted his glass. “To our marriage, Roxanne!”
Brilliant-eyed, she touched her glass to his. It made a little ringing sound, like a tiny cry of pain. “To our marriage, Gavin.” And the hell I will make it. “And you must pay Josie Mawkins for all she has spent in launching me.”
Laughing, he nodded his agreement and drank his wine.
Roxanne was escorted back to her town house in Gavin’s Pierce-Arrow. The chauffeur let her out courteously, and she hurried to her front door. A thick fog had settled over the city. Roxanne looked about her grimly as she set her key into the lock. That fog was no murkier than her plans.
The very next morning, her world was a bustle of activity. She found herself moving into a handsome Victorian mansion, fashionably high on Nob Hill and pleasantly above the fog that drifted in daily from the bay. Modistes called, and milliners. Boots were procured, and hats and gloves and fine French perfumes, and silk stockings with elaborate jeweled clocks, and lingerie marvelously sheer and dainty to the touch. Within the week she had a finely furnished house, a staff, a wardrobe of fine clothes, a Russian sable coat and a handsome carriage with a matched team of bays.
Silk-hatted, debonair, Gavin came to call, bringing gifts of flowers, jewels. In perfumed silks, Roxanne received him, serving him the finest wines and food—which his money had paid for. Over wine he bragged to her of his art acquisitions and of his business dealings. So vast was his empire now that his shipping enterprise had become almost a sideline. His market manipulations were frightening to her. He loved to fleece people. She knew more about him now, knew that she was not his only victim. One man he had ruined had taken a shot at him on the floor of the stock exchange—and had been shot by Gavin’s bodyguard, Gavotti, a big man who was always in evidence whenever Gavin made a public appearance. Another unfortunate victim of Gavin’s manipulations had committed suicide, leaving a widow and six orphans to fend for themselves. Gavin shrugged off these tragedies as a winnowing out of the weak. Roxanne sat and smiled and drank her wine and hated him. Those people would have their revenge—through her!
In the afternoons Gavin took her out, calling at the houses of his friends. Their wives returned her calls—whether coerced or on their own, Roxanne did not know. It did not matter to her. These were the women whom she would shock and horrify on some chosen night in the future, some night when Gavin’s pride in her was at its peak.
Spring found her sought-after—and most of all by Gavin. Hard-pressed, for the thought of his touch repelled her, she let him set a date for their engagement party.
“You will be an April bride,” he promised her. “The ball will be on a Tuesday and we will be married on a Wednesday, and afterwards I will take you to Europe, Roxanne.”
No, Europe did not suit her purposes. San Francisco—that was Gavin’s world. “I would prefer to stay here,” she surprised him by saying.
“Well, then, we will take a short honeymoon down the coast and return here.”
A honeymoon . . . she had forgotten about the honeymoon. Well, she would find a way to cut it even shorter. “I want to meet all your friends, Gavin. I want to entertain them in our home.”
Eager to humor her, he nodded. “I have brought the guest list for our engagement party. Does the ballroom of the Golden Palace Hotel please you?”
She nodded indifferently, studied the guest list. “There is one name you have omitted—Josie Mawkins.” He frowned. “Surely you know that to invite her would stamp you as—as—” He hesitated.
“A scarlet woman?” She flashed a look up at him through her dark lashes. “Yes, I suppose it would. Very well.” But only because we are not married yet, Gavin. After I am your wife, Josie Mawkins will attend every party I ever give!
He looked relieved that she was not going to make an issue of it. “The ballroom will be decked with white gardenias,” he said hastily. “I have ordered enough champagne to float away the guests. And here, I have brought you something.”
She touched her throat, where a wide diamond dog collar glittered, her ears where pendant diamond earrings sparkled like icicles. They felt cold to her touch—almost as cold as her voice. “You have already been generous enough, Gavin.”
“But this—” He slipped over her index finger a forty-carat marquise diamond, “is your engagement ring.”
She looked at it, startled. Even for a man of Gavin’s wealth, this seemed extravagant. On her hand the ring looked enormous. It was heavy and brilliant, but it seemed to have an evil glitter—perhaps because she hated the giver so much. “It is so large,” she murmured.
“It will show people that you are mine,” he said quietly. “I would not have it said in whispers but in a loud shout.”
She gave him a grim look. The shout would come sooner than he expected. She turned her head away from his kiss.
“But you will be my bride soon,” he protested sharply.
“Not until then.”
“Until tomorrow then,” he said moodily and stalked out. Coldly, she watched him go, her husband-to-be.
On the Monday night before the engagement ball, they attended the Metropolitan Opera Company’s first performance of the season in the Grand Opera House. The opera was the Queen of Sheba. Although the next morning’s papers panned the performance, the society columns were quick to note the beauty of the handsome Mrs. Barrington, who had attended clad in ice-blue satin and diamonds that surely must have cost a king’s ransom. They might have mentioned that the beautiful Mrs. Barrington’s expression was a little somber, but they did not see past her flashing diamonds.
Chapter 37
The Grand Ballroom of the Golden Palace Hotel was a blaze of lights that Tuesday night. Prominent guests were there in abundance—for even though some regretted that Gavin Coulter had chosen the night of Enrico Caruso’s performance in Carmen to give his ball, few had stayed away. To do so might be to invite the ire of a man known to be both overwhelmingly powerful and vengeful.
Roxanne knew that Gavin had arranged it that way. Deliberately. His guests must make thi
s sacrifice, an offering to his ego. Should any guest be so unwise as to default in favor of hearing the Italian tenor sing, Gavin would take note and revenge himself upon them at his leisure. Like an enormous spider, Gavin had chosen this great port city for his web. They were all caught in his toils, because his interests were far-reaching enough to touch almost everyone. That San Francisco feared him was apparent—for glittering and smiling and urbane, the elite turned out to welcome Roxanne into their midst.
Tales of the men Gavin had ruined haunted Roxanne. She thought she read fear in some of the bland faces that passed her in the receiving line. Smiling, newsworthy, people flowed past them. That woman whose gloved hand fluttered toward her—that was the mayor’s wife, wasn’t it? And the fat one with the enormous diamond dog collar set into her wobbly chins was a railroad tycoon’s widow and San Francisco’s most noted hostess. That tall thin woman in rustling green taffetas, the one with the envious dark eyes, surely Roxanne had seen her before . . . yes, of course, her picture had been in the papers: San Francisco socialite returns home after European tour. They were all here, the money, the names, all smiles . . . but their hearts were filled with dread of the arrogant man who stood beside Roxanne taking their measure.
Roxanne had never looked so lovely. Her dark-blond hair was pulled back in a gleaming golden mass of curls. Diamond earrings glittered like falling tears against her slender neck. The gown in which she stood was the loveliest she had ever owned and by far the most expensive. It had been ordered especially by Gavin from Paris and had arrived barely in time for earnest little seamstresses to fit it to her lissome body. A magnificent ball gown with a sweeping train, it was composed entirely of tiny white glittering beads sewn onto chiffon so that they swayed and rippled like tiny white icicles when she walked. The whole dress was supple and glittering and clung to her elegant torso, outlining her curving bust. From her diamond dog collar to the deep decolletage was an alarming distance, an expanse of sheer white skin that set Gavin’s eyes aglitter. She wore a set smile upon her face that never faltered, and if her blue eyes beneath their sweeping dark lashes seemed shadowed and sad, no one noticed. She was a vision of beauty to stop the heart. The effect was stunning.
These Golden Pleasures Page 46
