Straight For The Heart

by Marsha Canham

  “I doubt that very much. But if it wasn’t Ryan, who the hell else would you give your clothes to?”

  “Someone I trust!” she cried. “Is it so important for you to know who?”

  “Everything that happened last night is important … to both of us. The dress might well be the single most damning piece of evidence against you, and if you don’t have it, it would certainly behove us both to know where the bloody thing is! Now, who was with you last night, and where did you go after you left the Queen?”

  “I met Joshua Brice on the dock. He took me back to my hotel and promised me he would burn the dress—and I believe him.”

  “Brice?” The name caused a second shiver of tension to ripple through his body, and put an edge in his voice that could have cut a diamond. “You trust him that implicitly, do you?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  He stared at her a moment longer before turning his back. To cover the awful lapse in concentration her mention of the name had caused, he dug in his pocket for a cigar and lit it, drawing the harsh smoke deeply into his lungs and jolting him back to his senses.

  “Why,” he asked in as calm a voice as he could muster, “were you on board the Mississippi Queen in the first place?”

  “I was being blackmailed,” she said bluntly, hoping she sounded as ruthless and indifferent as he did.

  “Blackmailed?” The word had so little effect, it seemed as if he had been waiting for it. By way of confirmation, he reached into his pocket again and produced the note Wainright had sent her at Briar Glen; the same one Flora had rescued and showed him last night. “I assume that’s what this is all about?”

  “He found out I was Montana Rose. He threatened to make it public knowledge if I didn’t come up with fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Very knowledgeable, our Mr. Wainright. What else was he holding over you?”

  “You don’t think a threat against the noble Tarrington name was enough?”

  He flung the cigar after the flaming notepaper and rounded on her. “You’re nobody’s fool, Amanda. Regardless of what our marriage has or hasn’t been to this point, you knew I wouldn’t crumble at a bit of idle gossip. I never did give a hang about what you did or who found out. My only complaint was that you kept doing it on my ship.”

  There was a long, breathless pause.

  “Your ship?”

  “You didn’t know? Wainright didn’t tell you I owned the Mississippi Queen?”

  Amanda swallowed hard. “He … said something about a delicious irony, but no. I had no idea. I guess it was another one of those things we were going to talk about?”

  Another time she might have noticed the faint ruddiness that crept up beneath his tan. Another time she might have cared.

  “I suppose I was suffering under the foolish notion it might embarrass you to know I owned her.”

  “Then our initial meeting wasn’t so accidental after all?” she whispered.

  “I’d already made four or five runs into Natchez, waiting for you to make an appearance. I’d been hearing enough about the lovely and talented Montana Rose to know it was only a matter of time before you started to make some major inroads into my profits. I didn’t think the regular dealers could handle you, and I was right. I also suspected Ben was quite taken with you … and I was right again. The revenues from the Queen are rather handsome and provide me with an admirable if somewhat erratic income. Games like the one arranged for last night make up what I need in ready cash. So you see, my love, when you were sent in to fleece all the lambs at the table last night, you were, in essence, sent in to fleece me.” He paused a moment and studied her reaction. “Am I also right in assuming there was something else Wainright found out and was holding over you? Something to do with Verity, perhaps?”

  Amanda unclasped her hands, then clasped them together again.

  “I know Caleb Jackson wasn’t the father,” he said quietly.

  “No,” she whispered. “He wasn’t. The man who fathered Verity was a Yankee colonel who was quartered here for several weeks during the war. At least, I always suspected it was the colonel; I didn’t know for sure until Alisha admitted it in Wainright’s office. At the time, she claimed she had been raped. Only afterward, when she started to take less and less care of her comings and goings, did it begin to dawn on me that she probably enjoyed, even enticed, the colonel’s attention.”

  “Wait a minute,” Michael said slowly. “Are you telling me—”

  “Verity is Alisha’s child. Not that Alisha was ever Verity’s mother, or ever had any desire to be, but she was the one who got pregnant and the one who gave birth. She was the one who came to me with the ‘perfect solution,’ as she called it. For the two of us to change places and let everyone think it was me who was pregnant by my poor deceased husband."

  “No one questioned it? No one suspected the switch?”

  “It wasn’t as if any kind of social life existed in the latter years of the war. The only houseguests we had were Yankees, the only visitors we had were strangers.”

  Michael cast his mind—not as quick or as clear-thinking as it had been a few moments ago—back over the past few months, but there had never been a hint or a breath of a whisper to suggest Amanda was not the child’s real mother. Conversely, he could not recall a single incident when Alisha had paid the slightest heed to the child. She had not betrayed by so much as a glance or secret smile that she felt any attachment whatsoever to Verity. And their conversation that night at Rosalie … the lie was so convincing, she might have been talking about a complete stranger, not her own flesh and blood.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been trading secrets with Alisha? It was you who told her about Montana Rose, wasn’t it?”

  “It was an accident. It slipped out. I was in the middle of apologizing—”

  “To my sister? Whatever for?”

  The gray eyes bored into hers and he saw something that made the hairs rise across the nape of his neck. “What the hell has she told you?”

  “Everything. She was in Wainright’s office when I went to meet him and she told me … everything.”

  “It’s obvious she’s told you something.”

  Her chin trembled despite her determined efforts to keep it firm. “She told me the two of you were outside together the night we stayed at Rosalie. She said it was you who told her about me … about Montana Rose.”

  “What else?”

  “She said you were drunk and angry because I sent you away.”

  “I was angry, yes. Furious. But mostly at myself for being such a fool. I was walking it off along the river when she came out of nowhere, and I was just so bloody relieved to see who I thought was my wife coming to forgive me—”

  “No,” she cried, covering her ears as she shook her head. “I don’t want to hear any more lies!”

  “Then listen to the truth!” he snarled, coming to her side in two long strides. “She has twisted what happened to suit her own purposes. What did she tell you—that we made love that night?”

  “Michael, please—”

  “Is that what she told you?” He gripped her wrists and pulled her up onto her feet. “Well, I won’t lie to you: I came damned close to doing it. She was stark naked and using every trick in the book to seduce me, but as soon as I realized it wasn't you I couldn’t go through with it!”

  Amanda stared up into his face, wanting to believe him, needing to believe him, and yet—

  “Jesus God,” he rasped, seeing the shimmer of tears, reading the pain behind them. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  She nodded and the tears jumped over her lashes and streamed down to her chin.

  “Tell me.”

  “She was pregnant. She said it was yours.”

  Michael’s hands tightened around her wrists, scarcely able to believe what he was hearing. “It’s not true. Mandy … for God’s sake, it’s not true! I never touched her! And how could she have k
nown so soon she was pregnant, let alone that it was my child.”

  Amanda’s vision faded and she started to sag under a cloud of darkness. Michael was shouting. A sharp, stabbing pain caught her by surprise and she cried out, doubling over into Michael’s arms. He caught her and guided her gently back onto the couch just as Ryan burst through the door.

  “Amanda? Amanda, what happened?” His face was pale and rigid as he shoved past Tarrington and dropped to his knee beside her. “Are you all right? Is it the baby?”

  “I’m … fine,” she gasped. “It wasn’t the baby; it was just a stitch in my side.”

  “I’ll send for the doctor—”

  “No! No, just some water, please. A glass of water, and I’ll be fine.”

  “Christ,” he muttered. “Mercy!” He strode to the door and nearly collided with the portly maid, who was spun around instantly with orders to fetch water and warm blankets. And to send for the doctor.

  Michael had not moved from the foot of the couch. He hadn’t moved at all. Not a hair, not an eyelash. Only his eyes, after a few moments, broke away from Amanda’s to look at where her hands were cradled protectively over her belly.

  “A baby?” he whispered.

  “The loving husband”—Ryan snorted contemptuously— “had no idea?”

  “No,” Michael answered quietly. “I had no idea.”

  “And I don’t suppose you know how she got herself in this condition either?” he sneered.

  Michael’s face turned a dull, angry red. “Your sister seems to have heard some fairly tasteless things about me which she is willing to accept without questioning the source. Perhaps I should claim the same privilege.”

  Ryan straightened ominously. “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning … maybe I know how she got pregnant, I just don’t know by whom.”

  Another cry escaped Amanda’s lips before she could contain it.

  Ryan’s response was more direct. He swung hard and fast from the waist, his fist a blur of bunched knuckles as it slammed through the air and connected with Michael’s jaw. Michael was sufficiently off balance to stumble sideways with the blow, but his reflexes were superb and he came back swinging, smashing a punch into Ryan’s belly with enough force to rock him back on his heels.

  Amanda screamed but she was ignored. The two men crashed together over the back of the divan and for several minutes were lost from sight, with only the dull thud of flesh impacting on flesh and grunted curses to punctuate their scuffle. Ryan rolled into view and sprang onto his feet, his hands formed into claws as he reached down and hauled Michael upright. A vicious left hook sent a fine spray of Michael’s blood fanning the air fractions of a second before his own fist brought Ryan’s head into hard contact with one of the carved pilasters that decorated the wall. A volley of hard blows followed, taking advantage of Ryan’s temporary dazedness to drive him again and again into the same rippled woodwork.

  “Michael! Ryan! No!” Amanda flew across the room and tore frantically at her husband’s grip but he was half blinded by sweat and rage. Two, three more sickeningly solid punches slammed into Ryan’s cheeks and jaw before his body began to collapse and he sagged into a bloodied heap on the floor.

  Amanda fell on her knees beside him, running her hands over his face, his arms, catching him against her breast as he pitched forward with a pain-filled groan.

  Michael swayed where he stood, his breath heaving and hot, his fists stinging and his lip split and dripping blood down his shirtfront. His rage and frustration drained away in a sickening rush as he looked down at his wife and brother-in-law.

  “Mandy—”

  She felt his hand on her shoulder and jerked it away. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare touch me!”

  “For what it’s worth, your sister was lying. Do you hear me, Mandy? She was lying!”

  “I hear you,” she said, glaring up over her shoulder. “And yes. She was lying. About a lot of things, it seems.”

  “Come home with me. We can work all of this out.”

  Amanda bowed her head and cradled Ryan’s limp body closer in her arms. “Go away, Michael. Please … just go away.”

  He wiped at the blood on his chin and glanced at the doorway where Mercy, Sarah, and William Courtland were crowded around the entrance. Michael saw nothing to suggest any of them would be receptive to any manner of explanation he might offer.

  He retrieved his hat from the crush of debris and walked slowly to the door. Sarah and Mercy hurried past him to help Amanda with Ryan, leaving only William to block the exit with his wheelchair.

  Michael met the older man’s eyes and was still able to register some small surprise to see how clear, sharp, and penetrating William’s stare was. If he needed any further confirmation as to his father-in-law’s state of mind, it came with a dry mutter and a sorry shake of William’s head.

  “I may pretend to be deaf, dumb, and blind at times, because it suits me to be so. But you, son, … you’re just plain dumb.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was just plain stupid, that’s what it was. Arguing, fighting, exchanging insults and accusations like a couple of schoolchildren caught hiding toads in the schoolmarm’s desk. Not nearly as harmless, though. Not nearly as harmless.

  Amanda twisted to find a more comfortable position for her legs and realized she was still in the parlor. The room was pitch black and had been for some time, to judge by the lack of any glow at all from the fireplace. She was dressed in her nightgown and robe, so groggy she couldn’t remember when she had gone to her room or how she had gotten there. Ryan had needed her help, but his pain was more physical than mental. Mercy had seen to Sarah and Verity while Obediah had put William to bed and, on one of the few occasions Amanda could recall, had then locked and bolted the doors before muttering his way to his own rooms out back of the kitchen.

  Amanda had gone to her room but she hadn’t been able to close her eyes, much less sleep. She had paced and replayed the confrontations over and over in her mind, between her and Ryan, Ryan and Michael, Michael and her, Alisha and her. Even Forrest Wainright’s ugly face had intruded on her thoughts, laughing at her ignorance over Michael’s ownership of the Mississippi Queen, laughing at Alisha’s predicament, laughing at her own gullibility and her fatal penchant for assuming responsibility for everyone else’s mistakes.

  Michael denied having been with Alisha, denied the child was his, and, with hindsight’s perfect clarity of vision, Amanda knew it was the truth. How she ever could have believed Alisha’s lies, she did not know.

  At the same time, Michael had obviously believed Alisha’s half truths about Verity. She had told him Caleb wasn’t the father and he had assumed—what? That Amanda had taken a lover? Had played the role of a whore to survive the war? In hindsight again, it would suit Alisha’s twisted mind to impose her own situation over Amanda’s, to make the lie more convincing for the sake of it being half true.

  Bitter words, cruel accusations. She had sent him away and he had not balked. He had not come back either, in spite of the many trips she paced to and from the windows willing him to come riding up the drive. It was what had brought her back down to the parlor, she recalled now—the imagined sound of hoofbeats on the hard-packed earth. And it had been the disappointment that had left her slumped on the settee, having checked the view from every window, every vantage.

  She couldn’t blame him if he never came back, if he never wanted to see her again. No doubt he would be only too happy to see the end of her and her entire troublesome family, for he had surely had enough strife from all of them.

  She loved him, she knew that now. Completely, utterly and absolutely. Come first light, she would go to him—crawl to him, if need be—and try to make him understand. If he left Natchez hating her, she would not be able to bear it. If he left with the image of her prone at his feet, it would at least be pity, not anger he carried with him in his heart.

  She drew her wrapper closer around her shoulders and star
ted to rise. A faint disturbance —a creaking floorboard and a dull rattle from the other side of the parlor door—intruded on her thoughts and she sighed, wondering who else was awake at this ungodly hour. Mercy, probably. Making hot milk for herself … unless there was a problem with Verity?

  Wider awake and feeling even more guilt for having neglected her daughter for her own troubles, Amanda padded noiselessly across the darkened room and went through the service door to the kitchen. Expecting to see a light and a shining black face bent over the stove, she was stalled temporarily by the impenetrable darkness. The door whined softly as she pushed it wider, but there was no relief to the heavy shadows. The lamp that was normally kept burning by the stove had been extinguished and the kitchen fire long since banked for the night. The sliver of moon that had helped alleviate some of the gloom in the parlor was blocked by the huge magnolia outside the window, and what little light did manage to filter through was barely enough to vary the shades of black outlining the furniture and fittings.

  Amanda huffed a small sigh and turned to go. This time it was not so much what she heard or saw that stopped her at the threshold. It was more of a smell. Foreign, filthy, and salty, it assaulted her senses as surely as a blast of cold air, prompting the same results in a flush of gooseflesh that crawled up her arms.

  “Mercy? Obediah?” She heard the creak again and saw the back door swing open on its hinges, pushed by a gusting breeze.

  “For pity’s sake,” she muttered, her heart in her throat, her blood pounding in her temples. Just the door. Just the wind.

  She was halfway across the kitchen when she remembered that Obediah had bolted all the doors. Too late she saw the shadows beside her shift and a pair of hands snaked out of the darkness, one clamping over her mouth, the other curling around her waist and dragging her back to make rough contact against the wall.

  “Not a sound, lady,” a voice hissed in her ear. “Not one sound or so help me”—the intruder wedged his bony body against her and slid the cold press of a knife blade alongside her neck—“it’ll be the last one you make. Understand me?”